Sunday Post and Stacking the Shelves 16th August

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted at Caffeinated Book Reviewer, it's a chance to post a recap on the past week, show the books we have received and share what we plan for the coming week. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews and the aim is to show our newest books and to see what everyone else received for review, borrowed from libraries, bought in bookshops or downloaded on to their e-reader.

Last Week on the Blog:

• Cover Characteristics: Bicycles
• 90s Movie Book Tag
• Top Ten Authors We've Read the Most Books From
• Tuesday Intros
• Top 5 Required Reading
• WWW Wednesday
• Thursday Quotables
• Clare Reviews: The Falconer by Elizabeth May
• NSFW Tag
• Friday Reads and 56
• Ann Reviews: The Pledge by Kimberly Derting
• Cover Characteristics: Owls
• Bout of Books Read-a-thon TBR

Books We Got This Week:

Pop Sonnets by Erik Didriksen: I received this from Netgalley for review and I am super excited for it. It should be really fast, funny read.

Complete Nonsense by Edward Lear: Mostly just because I discovered that Ann didn't know about the Owl and the Pussycat!? 

Once Every Never by Lesley Livingston: Lesley Livingston is more or less an auto-buy author for me, so I was excited to find there was a book of hers I hadn't read. Plus the main character goes by Clare!

The Potion Diaries by Amy Alward: This one is mostly for Ann. It looks like a lot of fun and it was blurbed by Zoella, who wrote Ann's current favourite book - Girl Online.

The Confectioner's Tale by Laura Madeleine: A split time story, which I almost always love so I have high hopes for this one.

The Silversmith's Wife by Sophia Tobin: Murder, love and buried secrets. Some of my favourite literary things!

The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow by Katherine Woodfine: This was mentioned on Art and Soul in her WWW Wednesday here and it really intrigued me.

Reading Update:

Ann:

The Essence by Kimberly Derting: 3.5 stars. This book has taken me a while to read but I think that is mainly because I just haven't been in the right mood but I finally finished it when I went round my Nan and Grandad's on Friday. I haven't decided yet if i am going to read the third book, I probably will after i have read all the books on my TBR for the read-a-thon.

By Midnight by Mia James: 1 star. I didn't even finish this book because it was that bad. I am not sure what else I can say about it other than it was terrible.

Clare:

The Falconer by Elizabeth May: 3.5 stars. This was a fun read, but I wasn't engrossed by the story. I have a full review up here.

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan: 3.5 stars. I was unsure for a while whether I should round this up to a 4. It's a good start to the series with great characters, but it felt a little long and I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the Percy Jackson series - which is probably my own fault since I hyped it up too much.
The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan: 4 stars. Definitely enjoyed this one more, I'm a huge fan of the chapter headings in Riordan's books by the way. So amusing and they really add to my reading experience. However there is a love triangle developing and I know this is middle grade and this might just be me being all old - but I find it so hard to take the love life of a 13 year old seriously.
The Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan: 4 stars. The love/romance side of it didn't really click for me but I loved the action and the mythology. I will have a full review up for this series tomorrow.
Netherwood by Jane Sanderson: 4 stars. Ok, so this is slightly cheating. I am a couple of chapters away from being finished but this post needs to go up and I will definitely be finishing tonight. Next week's reading update will be a read-a-thon wrap up so I didn't want to leave this one out. A very good book, I love the atmosphere and I am now so hungry! The food in this book sounds amazing and there is even a little recipe book thing at the end I may have to try out!

Classics Update:

Ann: I am currently on page 126. Which is ahead of schedule because I was so far behind that Clare made me another schedule and I couldn't stop myself from reading on. 

Clare: I am on page 139 which is still not half way through! I am aiming to finish this for the read-a-thon though (I know it doesn't count as a full book but I can count the pages read, right!?) so this time next week I should be telling you I've finished it. Should. 

Next Week:

• Jennifer Lawrence Book Tag
• Review: The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan
• Top Ten Auto Buy Authors
• Tuesday Intros and Teaser Tuesday
• WWW Wednesday
• Review: Netherwood by Jane Sanderson
• Friday Reads and Friday 56

We are also participating in the Bout of Books Read-a-Thon this week so there will be posts relating to that as well. If there are any books we've mentioned that you'd like to see a review on please let us know. We will be doing a review of our classics at the end of the month when we have both finished reading.

You can find us on Goodreads (Ann and Clare) and on Twitter (Ann and Clare)