Always Me

Welcome to The Friday 56, a weekly meme hosted by  Freda's Voice . These are the rules: 1. Grab a book, any book. 2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. 3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. 4. Post it. 5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post. I'm also taking part in Book Beginnings, a weekly meme hosted by  Rose City Reader .  The rules are pretty simple - you share the first sentence or so and your initial thoughts, impressions, or whatever else it inspires.  Don't forget to link up your post's url with Rose City Reader. This week I'm spotlighting one of my current reads, Down with the Shine  by Kate Karyus Quinn .  I've only made it through the prologue so far, but I've certainly been hooked by those opening pages and the premise behind the story sounds excellent - moonshine that grants twisted wishes, yes please!  Here's to hoping th

❋  ❋  ❋  ❋ Rose is riding her brand new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota when she falls into a square hole lit up with intricate carvings. When the firemen rescue her, they realize something even weirder - that the girl landed in the palm of a giant metal hand. Years later, the mystery surrounding it remains unsolved - none of the reports make any sense. All they have are rumors and theories. Now, seventeen years later Rose is a top physicist leading a team to figure it all out and they are on the edge of a real breakthrough and discovering what it all means for humanity. Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel is a fantastic debut novel. I loved following Rose and her team's journey to figure out the mystery involving the hand and the subsequently found pieces. Honestly, I love the plot and getting to know the cast. Usually, I love stories that are a told in another format, so I was expecting to enjoy that about this novel, but I felt too disconnected from characters

Happy Tuesday and welcome back to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish !  This week the topic is a freebie - so you could do whatever you like, or do a past topic you might have missed.  This week in honor of Father's Day, which was on Sunday, June 19, I'm going to share some of my favorite father's in fiction. Arthur Weasley from the  Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird  by Harper Lee Ben Moore & Cillian Boyd from the Chaos Walking series   by Patrick Ness Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings  by J.R.R. Tolkien  Grandpa Joe from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory  by Roald Dahl Hans Hubermann from The Book Thief  by Markus Zusak Luke Garroway from The Mortal Instruments  series by Cassandra Clare The Man from The Road by Cormac McCarthy Ned Stark from A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin Sirius Black from the  Harry Potter series by J.K. R

Happy Monday everyone and welcome back to Music Monday! Let's share some songs we've been enjoying lately!  If you would like to play and I really hope you do, please see the rules and link up below. Rules: Every Monday share one or two of songs you've been enjoying lately.  It doesn't have to be a specific genre, new, or one of your favorites - just something you'd like to share with others.  If possible, share a music or lyric video of the song and your thoughts on the song(s), artist(s), and/or music video(s). If you would like to participate in Music Monday, please join the link up by sharing your post's url. This week I'm sharing a couple of my favorite Disney songs as performed in the characters' native tongues!  So cool!  You can listen to more here . "Be Our Guest" ( Beauty and the Beast ) "Part of Your World" ( The Little Mermaid )

Welcome back to Starting Sparks, a monthly writing link-up hosted by  Emily @ Ink, Inc.  and  Ashley G. @ [insert title here] !  The idea behind it is to spark your creativity and write on a theme posted at the first of the month by the co-hosts.  You can write whatever you like be it a short story, a scene, a poem, a piece of dialogue, or simply an exploration of an idea.  This month the selected theme is the following: After Work Treat Today, he had nearly botched a job for the first time in years.  The professional assassin had come within a hair's breadth of letting his target escape - and that would have been like signing his own death warrant.  In the end, though, he had taken care of it and no one knew that the entire operation had been this close to going south.  On his way home from the job, he decided to treat himself to one of his favorite meals to reward himself for a job well done. "Thank you for choosing McDonald's!  Please order when you're r

I've been nominated by Cara @ Periods and Semicolons for the Real Neat Blog Award!  Thanks so much, Kara!  Everyone go check out her blog! Rules: 1. Thank and link back to the blogger who nominated you. 2. Answer the seven questions set to you. 3. Create seven questions for your nominees. 4. Nominate seven other bloggers. Cara's Questions: 1. What is your favorite food? Baked macaroni and cheese - yum!! 2. How many languages do you know? Aside from English, I know some French and Japanese, and a bit of ASL.  I've recently been using Duolingo to take Swedish lessons - Duolingo has to be one of my favorite apps. 3. Describe the last book you read using only one word. How to Train Your Dragon  by Cressida Cowell  (Audio) - Fun! 4. What books are you currently reading? Paper and Fire ( The Great Library #2) by Rachel Caine (ARC) The May Queen Murders  by Sarah Jude Alias Hook  by Lisa Jensen (Audio) 5. Of all of the unread bo

Welcome to The Friday 56, a weekly meme hosted by  Freda's Voice . These are the rules: 1. Grab a book, any book. 2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. 3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. 4. Post it. 5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post. I'm also taking part in Book Beginnings, a weekly meme hosted by  Rose City Reader .  The rules are pretty simple - you share the first sentence or so and your initial thoughts, impressions, or whatever else it inspires.  Don't forget to link up your post's url with Rose City Reader. This week I'm spotlighting one of my current reads,   The May Queen Murders by Sarah Jude .  I've just read the prologue so far, and I'm enjoying it so far .  I've seen quite a few mixed reviews on this novel, praising the concept but not so thrilled by the overall execution.   Beginning:  Kerosene slopped from the

I've tagged myself to complete the Scavenger Hunt Book Tag, which I spotted over on Giovanna @ Book Coma .  I thought this looked like a fun one to take part in, so without further ado here we go! 1. Find a book with the letter "z" in its title or the author's name. Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz - I have several of his books, but this is the first one that jumped out at me. 2. Find me a classic. The Beetle  by Richard Marsh - If you like weird Gothic Horror from Victorian England, you have to read this.  It actually was released the same year as Dracula , and initially it out performed that novel, but it's virtually unheard of today. 3. Find the oldest book on your shelves. I'm taking a different a different approach to this one - rather than doing the physically oldest book, I'm going to share the oldest yearbook I own.  This isn't one of my personal school yearbooks, but it's one that I've picked up later.  Yes,