Release Day Blitz & Giveaway: Roseblood by A.G. Howard

Roseblood by A.G. Howard releases today! If you haven’t heard about A.G. Howard's latest book, be sure to check out all the details below. There's also a giveaway down at the bottom of the post, where you can enter for a chance to win a signed Roseblood poster and a mask (courtesy of A.G. Howard & Rockstar Book Tours).

Title: ROSEBLOOD

Author: A.G. Howard

Pub. Date: January 10, 2016

Publisher: Amulet Books

Pages: 432

Formats: Hardcover, paperback, eBook

Find it: Amazon, B&N, iBooks, Audible, Goodreads

In this modern day spin on Leroux’s gothic tale of unrequited love turned to madness, seventeen-year-old Rune Germain has a mysterious affliction linked to her operatic talent, and a horrifying mistake she’s trying to hide. Hoping creative direction will help her, Rune’s mother sends her to a French arts conservatory for her senior year, located in an opera house rumored to have ties to The Phantom of the Opera.

At RoseBlood, Rune secretly befriends the masked Thorn—an elusive violinist who not only guides her musical transformation through dreams that seem more real than reality itself, but somehow knows who she is behind her own masks. As the two discover an otherworldly connection and a soul-deep romance blossoms, Thorn’s dark agenda comes to light and he’s forced to make a deadly choice: lead Rune to her destruction, or face the wrath of the phantom who has haunted the opera house for a century, and is the only father he’s ever known.

A.G. Howard was inspired to write SPLINTERED while working at a school library. She always wondered what would've happened had the subtle creepiness of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland taken center stage, and she hopes her darker and funkier tribute to Carroll will inspire readers to seek out the stories that won her heart as a child.

When she's not writing, A.G.'s pastimes are reading, rollerblading, gardening, and family vacations which often include impromptu side trips to 18th century graveyards or condemned schoolhouses to appease her overactive muse.

Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Tumblr | Pinterest | Goodreads

Now for the giveaway. One winner will receive a signed Roseblood poster and a Mask. This giveaway is US Only and ends on January 17th at Midnight EST.

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Music Monday (11) Epic Music Edition

   Rules:

• Music Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren Stoolfire at Always Me that asks you to share one or two songs that you've recently enjoyed. For the rules, visit the page HERE 

I’m finally back from my blogging break, thus ends my weekly meme hiatus. To get back into the swing of things, I’m starting out with Music Monday. Adri is also back, and today, we’re going to share some of our favorite epic music (also known as trailer music).

Breana:

Besides the Christmas edition of Music Monday, this is another post I’m really excited to do. I listen to a lot of epic music, because, lets be honest here, there’s just so much of it. Many of the groups I know of I found by random on Youtube, or by recommendation (thanks Adri!). My first pick this week is Adventures of Gillock by Two Steps From Hell. This is one of my favorite songs, but it’s so short! This is one of the songs that I wish was longer than it really is. One minute and nine seconds just isn’t enough. :-(

My second pick is All the King's Horses also by Two Steps from Hell. I love how upbeat it is. And like Adventures of Gillock, I wish this song was a little longer.

Adri:

Since we're kicking off 2017 (epically), I want to start with one of my favorite songs called Wyatt Earth by Globus. I really love all of their songs on the Break From This World album, but Wyatt Earth speaks to me the most. I could type on and on about this song, but I'm not. So, here's my first Music Monday pick of 2017.

Do you listen to epic music? If so, tell us your favorite songs in the comments below. 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from Our Thoughts Precisely! It's officially 2017. We hope everyone has a safe and marvelous day. Regular blogging will resume shortly. :-)

End of the Year Post (2016)

Well, 2016 is just a few days from being over, and it’s time to share some of my general thoughts about my year in blogging. To make it easier on myself, I’m going to divide this post down into sections, and talk about those subjects individually.

• Books…

This year, I went back and read a lot of older releases that I’ve been meaning to get to. I have to admit, it was a lot of fun, and I realized just how many great books I’ve missed.

One of the big things I’ve come to accept this year is that I don’t need the new releases as soon as they come out. I’ve realized that I’m okay with waiting a little longer—sometimes months—to read the books I’m really looking forward to. My reasoning is that I’m still going to eventually read the book, so I just don’t worry about it anymore and feel more relaxed.

I’m still okay with DNFing books I’m just not enjoying. I used to be one of those people who tried to finish every book I started. So, I’ve tried that before, it takes forever to get to the end of the book, and I end up losing my enthusiasm for reading and blogging. In 2016, I’ve pretty much stuck to the first 100 page thing—sometimes I’ll read a little more than that if there’s something I find promising about the story. However, for the most part, I’ve set aside books that I just couldn’t get into, in favor of ones I really wanted to read, and ended up enjoying.

The biggest thing I’ve focused on is reading what makes me happy, rather than spending too much time on things that I don’t like.

• Memes…

I actually really like the memes I’m currently participating in. They’re pretty easy to do, and it’s really up to me what I do and don’t want to post. Nothing has really changed since 2015 in that regard, except for the fact that I tried out some non-book related memes. Music seemed like a good fit for Our Thoughts Precisely. So, I tried out two—one on Thursday and the other on Monday. The Thursday meme didn’t work out since it added another day to my regular posting schedule. I wanted to keep Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as the days I primarily post on. So, Music Monday stuck around. It worked out for the better since I could use the two Monday memes interchangeably, or participate in both.

For the past several weeks, Adri has been blogging regularly on Music Monday. It has been so much fun writing out the post, and sharing our music recommendations.  

• Some thoughts about the blog...

I don’t think my method of blogging has changed much since last year. A lot of the things I started doing in 2015 occurred regularly in 2016 since they worked so well for me. Could things change in 2017? I don’t really think so. I’m pretty happy with how things currently work. However, a big part of blogging is learning as I go. So, it would be kind of premature to say “never!” to any potential changes.  

The Books of 2016

Instead of doing a quarterly recap to close out the year, I’ve essentially broken the post down into various parts, one of which is The Books of 2016. I’m going post links to all the books I or a co-blogger read and reviewed on Our Thoughts Precisely in 2016, list some of the best new to me authors, and series that I want and have continued. A lot of this post is going to be in a list-like format since this is technically a recap.

2016 Books

Wintersmith / Love Charms and Other Catastrophes / The Torn Wing / Riverkeep 
Thieving Weasels / Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World
The Traitor in the Tunnel / Mortal Gods / The Reader / Visual reference Guide: Architecture
Fangirl / A Corner of White / The Witches / Cloudwish / Burning Emerald / Grand Forks
Hourglass / The Illustrated Compendium of Animal Facts / Flora Segunda 

The Wide-Awake Princess / Oleah Chronicles: Justice
Founding Myths:Stories that Hide Our Patriotic Past / The Darkest Part of the Forest
The Body At the Tower / Dead is a State of Mind / Need 
From the Notebooks of a Middle School princess / Rain: A Natural and Cultural History
Royal Wedding Disaster / A Week Without Tuesday / Wonderstruck 

Guys Read: Terrifying Tales / The Radiant Road / The Love that Split the World
Dead is the New Black / The Marvels / Untamed / The Night Has Teeth / Earth Girl
A Spy in the House / Gemina / The Lost Lullaby / Nightmares / The Snow Queen

The Bridge From Me To You / The Star-Touched Queen / The Sleepwalker Tonic

Iceling / A Shadow Bright and Burning

Best new to me authors, and series that I want and have continued…

This year, I returned to a handful of old favorites as part of my New Year blogging resolutions. I also read a lot of backlist books that I previously missed. And, I read a handful of the new releases this year, and they were fantastic. Of course, by doing all of that, I also came across authors that were otherwise unknown to me. This list is in no particular order. It’s not based on how much I liked the book or any other factor. It’s at random.

Fiction...

Traci Chee / Roshani Chokshi / Jason Segel & Kisten Miller / Jaclyn Moriarty 

Sasha Stephenson / Tone Almhjell / Kiki Hamilton / Lisa Schroeder / E.D. Baker

Janet Edwards / Martin Steward / Billy Taylor / Kat Kruger

Nonfiction...

Ray Raphael / Cynthia Barnette / Marilyn Hagerty / Rachel Ignotofsky

To close out this post, I’m going to discuss some of the series that I continued reading this year and ones that have new releases coming out in 2017. This list doesn’t include series that started in 2016.

• Tuesday McGillycuddy series by Angelica Banks—I took part in the blog tour for the second book in this series, A Week without Tuesday. It was really nice to see a lot of the cast from book one back for another adventure. Plus, the land where stories come from is still one of my favorite parts of the series. The third book, Blueberry Pancakes Forever, comes out on February 7th 2017
• The Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff—Gemina was one of my highly anticipated 2016 releases. The wait for it seemed so long, and while the book wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, it was still fun and I will definitely continue on with this series.
• The Cambion Chronicles by Jaime Reed—This is one series I’ve been meaning to finish, and for the longest time, I just didn’t have book two. Book two, Burning Emerald, answered a lot of the questions I still had about the series. 
• Grimbaude series by Kimberly Karalius—Love Charms and Other Catastrophes was another one of my highly anticipated 2016 releases, and suffice it to say, I wasn’t disappointed.
• Splintered series by A.G. Howard—I read Untamed because I wanted to see what happened to Alyssa after the end of Ensnared. Like with most short story collections I’ve read, I had my favorites and there were others that were just alright for me.

I’m going to end this post here. Sometime soon, I’m going to continue my 2016 blogging recap. So, keep an eye out for that. Happy reading!