If You Like...Spy Books

If You Like… is a feature highlighting blogger recommendations for books, authors, TV shows, movies, and music based on the things you already know and love. This week’s post includes recommendations for stories related to Harriet the Spy. 

                               I'm a HUGE spy book fan. Check out these fabulous titles!

BEA: recap Tuesday (part 2)

I'm still trying to remember everyone I met and everything I saw that looked awesome - it's pretty hard. BEA is my favorite book moments of the year. I look forward to it each yet. I love meeting people who love books as much as I do! 


I love meeting bloggers, who's blogs I read. I love meeting new to me bloggers. I love seeing librarian friends and meeting new librarian friends. I like chatting with the publishers and finding out more about their upcoming books.  I love looking at the book covers on the walls of the booths. 


Tuesday: Was the first day of BEA.


I arrived around 8ish and checked my suitcase. There was already a long line of people waiting. I found a shorter line and sat down to wait with them. While I had my day planned, I knew from past experiences that the plan usually goes out the window within moments.


I started by hitting up my favorite publishers and then moved to specific authors.

Here's a photo of the Liar Society: Lies that Bind. I adore this cover and can't wait to read the book. I was hoping to snag one, but never saw one.

Here's Stealing Parker and Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart - again books that I can't wait to read. 

In the morning, I met Harelquin authors. They were all super sweet. While waiting in line (it was a long one), Harlequin handed out two arcs and some bookmarks. They were really organized this year. 

Maria V. Snyder - who's books I adore

 Rachel Vincent

In the afternoon, I stood in line with my co-worker Amanda to see James Patterson. He was super nice! I'm looking forward to reading Confessions of a Murder Suspect. 

I also met Gordon Korman. I've been adoring his tween books after the first one we read for our 4th and 5th grade bookclub and for the book club at the schools. All the kids LOVED Chasing the Falconers. I was really happy to meet him and I'm looking forward to reading Ungifted.

I went to the Meet the Apocalypsies event, which was great, but crowded. I met several authors (sometimes climbing over chairs to do it) and a few book bloggers.

After that event, I went back to my hotel room to change for the Penguin Teen party.

View from my hotel room

The Penguin Party was AMAZING and very crowded. I chatted with several librarians and people from the Northshire Bookstore (which I went to all the time when I was young) and RJ Julias - where I met awesome authors. I met John Green who was charming. I chatted with Maureen Johnson, Allie Condie, Marie Lu, and  Susane Colasanti. All of whom were so very nice and made my day.

After the party, Amanda and I went to Times Square to grab a bite to eat. That's where I saw the banner for the NBA playoffs - with Rondo featured!

A quick look at today's books:

These will go into the library collection

These are books I can't wait to read!

These are books I know the teens will love for summer reading prizes!  I can't wait to share them.

Now I need to update my purchasing list for the library as there are SO many great teen and tween books coming out soon!!!! Happy I could learn about them.

Mysterious Saturday Review: Brownies and Broomsticks

 * 1st in a new series *

Katie's excited at the idea of a brand new life. When her aunt and uncle decide to open a bakery, she's more than happy to become their baker. She moves to Savannah and buys a cute house.


She can't wait to help make Honeybee Bakery a huge success. Katie's so eager to make the bakery a success, that she agrees to cater a business meeting days before opening. It's a decision she regrets when her uncle gets into a disagreement over the check with Mavis Templeton. 


He storms off and moments later Mavis is found dead - murdered in her car. There's a witness that places a man at the scene, a man who looks an awfully lot like Uncle Ben. 


Katie's not about to let her uncle go to jail. She starts snooping in town and learns that Mavis was not well liked and for good reason. Can she clear her Uncle's name while making the bakery a huge success during it's first few days?


My Thoughts: A great start to a new series with magic, baked goodies, and a potential love triangle. Katie's not looking to get involved with man after her last breakup, but she meets two men who have potential. One's a fireman and the other a journalist, who's also a witch.


Katie learns about her family heritage, but it takes her a while to come to terms with her witchy side.  She digs through her past for understanding. She knows that she needs to talk with her parents about keeping her history a secret, but she decides to deal with one family crisis at a time. I love her familiar, he's cute and amusing.


The bakery sounds fabulous - a place I'd like to frequent. I love how Aunt Lucy adds spells to the baked good to improve the lives of their customers.  I liked learning about the town through Katie's investigation. I really like Katie's neighbor and friend. All in all, Brownies and Broomsticks is a delightful charming new series and I'm excited to read more about the magical bakery. 


Cover Thoughts: Adorable. I like the goodies showcased with magic wafting off them. It fits the book perfectly!


Source: My Library.

BEA Wrap Up: Part 1 - Monday

I'm still trying to remember everyone I met and everything I saw that looked awesome - it's pretty hard. BEA is my favorite book moments of the year. I look forward to it each yet. I love meeting people who love books as much as I do! 

Monday I went to the Book Blogger Con for the first time. It was interesting and I loved meeting so many bloggers!

I got eat breakfast with Jenny Han (I really need to her books! I keep hearing awesome things about them and they're perfect for summer.), Tricia Rayburn (who has an awesome sounding middle grade novel coming out under T.R. Burns and I loved her Maggie Bean books), and Sonja Manzano (who plays Maria on Sesame Street and has a YA book coming out with a GREAT cover story.)

I adored Jennifer Weiner! As the keynote speaker, she made great points about the lack of respect for women's fiction and those who blog about women's fiction. She was really sweet and very funny.

During Lunch, I got to chat with Julie Kagawa (who is so super nice), Jordan Matter (who's book of photographing dancers looks amazing) and Heather Ross (who makes her own fabrics and has a craft book coming out. She also has a picture book out in the fall).

One of the dancers from Jordan Matter

After panels on Blogging Today, Critical Reviews, and Demystifying the Book Blogger & Publisher Relationship where I jotted down notes for future reference, Jenny Lawson from the Bloggess ended the day. She was amusing and very honest. 

After the day, I went to a dinner party for Soho Teen, in the cutest restaurant.

We talked about books, authors, and book cover over food. Soho is just starting a teen imprint. Keep your eyes out for great books coming soon!

What's on My Hold's List (14)

 

My Librarian friend Jess from I Read to Relax came up with a great idea.  It's to highlight the books on hold at the library. I usually have 20-40 items checked out at the library and another 20 items on hold.

Size Twelve and Ready to Rock: I adore Meg Cabot and the Heather Wells mysteries. 

If the Shoe Fits: The first in a new series called Cinderella Sisterhood. Love the cover!

Mapmaker and The Ghost: A tween book with adventure, ghosts, and one determined girl.

Tween Tuesday Review: Cleared for Takeoff

*This is the 3rd book in the Liberty Porter, First Daughter series*


** Tween Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted at GreenBeanTeenQueen to highlight great reads for tweens. Join the fun!  **


Liberty Porter will be getting her first stamp in her passport. She's not sure where's she's going yet as her parents are keeping the location a surprise. Liberty does know that she's required to take a manners class.

Luckily she convinces her whole class to brush up on their manners. Learning manners has never been more fun as Miss Crum has the students demonstrate what NOT to do.

Now that she knows how to behave, she can't wait until they're on the plane. That's when she learns they're going to Georgia. Soon she's worried if she's going to make a good impression and how to best represent American kids. What if she makes a huge mistake?

My Thoughts: I really like this series. I find Liberty to be refreshing and full of mischief. I love her antics, like the chocolate pudding competition. 


I like the illustrations. I really enjoy James who's a little polite, but can let himself relax around Liberty. I really like SAM, Liberty's Secret Service Agent and the way he interacts with her.


I like learning about Georgia and the country's customs. I also like how it connected with the author's personal life. 


Cover Thoughts: Super Cute!


Source: Inter-Library Loan


Fun Fact: I wonder if the Captain Tonya Stone on Air Force One is connected to the author?

Dreamless Blog Tour

I'm lucky to be participating in the the DREAMLESS Blog Tour.

Josephine is chatting with us about writing her most challenging character.

I think the most challenging character for me to write about was Daphne.  She has a specific goal throughout the course of the books, but I didn’t want to give that goal away until the climax, so choosing what to reveal to the reader and what to withhold was one of the hardest aspects of developing the STARCROSSED storyline.  Stephen King once said that good books don’t reveal all their secrets at once.  But he never said when exactly to reveal them.

This is why I’m such a big fan of outlines.  Sometimes the difference between an exciting book and a slow one doesn’t have anything to do with the plot or the characters.  It’s in the timing of the reveals that decides how engrossing that story is.  Outlining is the best way to plan when to reveal secrets to the reader, and by spacing out the secrets, you can keep people turning pages, desperate to find out what happens next.

Daphne’s backstory and her motivation for all the terrible things she does to Helen drive the pace in STARCROSSED and her timeline decides the spacing of some major reveals.  I worked my butt off to make her as effective as possible.  She is a complicated character, but ultimately, it has been extremely rewarding for me to write her.

Follow Josephine: Website - Blog - Twitter - Facebook - Goodreads

Want More: Check out these links

• Browse inside Harper Teen
• Dreamless Playlist
• Dreamless e-book: 
• Harper Teen | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Google Ebooks | Kobo | iBookstore (At participating ebook store links, you can purchase Dreamless for $0.99)!!
• Follow the Dreamless Blog Tour; follow on Twitter under the #DreamlessDays and @Josieangelini

GRAND PRIZE CONTEST:

Josephine is hosting a blog tour giveaway, and this giveaway will end at the end of the tour. She's giving away a kindle with either the Starcrossed or Dreamless skin on it. In order for blog tour followers to enter, they do need to comment on each blog tour post (only once) as well as follow Josie on twitter. All that info is included in the giveaway itself. It is US only. 


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