Sunday Post #47 - One Week Down...

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer

It's a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things you received, share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead, and more.

We are a whole week into 2017!
I've been busy busy with my life goals (aka things I already do daily but pretend are my new year resolutions anyway) and haven't had much time for reading but I've been trying to keep up with the blog as much as I can. Right now it's a choice between reading, writing, blogging, or sleeping. Sleep usually wins because I have a toddler and I'm exhausted at the end of each day. Hopefully I can fit in some reviewing soon. 

I hope you are all having a wonderful week and have a great start to the new year! 

This Past Week On The Blog

My January 2017 TBR

2017 Beat the Backlist Reading Challenge

Flights of Fantasy 2017 Reading Challenge

Series Enders Reading Challenge

Book Review: The Alchemists of Loom by Elise Kova

Coming Soon

Book Review: A Gathering of Shadows by VE Schwab

Picture Book Review: I Am Jane Goodall
Top Ten Tuesday

What I'm Currently Reading

What I'm Listening To
I recently (finally) got an ipod because my old af mp3 player couldn't hold any more than 300 songs (the horror) so I've been searching for lots of new music to listen to while I read and write and I thought I'd share one or two a week. 

Faulkner's Sleep by Evgeny Grinko

Featured Freebie

Full length freebie of The Petrified Flesh by Cornelia Funke on Amazon. 

Book Review: The Alchemists of Loom by Elise Kova

I received a free ecopy of this book from Netgalley and Keymaster Press in exchange for an honest review.

Title: The Alchemist's of Loom

Author: Elise Kova

Series: Loom Saga #1

Publisher: Keymaster Press

Publication Date: January 10, 2017

Genre: Fantasy

Length: 380 pages

Format: ebook

Source: Netgalley

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N

Synopsis: 

Her vengeance. His vision. 

Ari lost everything she once loved when the Five Guilds' resistance fell to the Dragon King. Now, she uses her unparalleled gift for clockwork machinery in tandem with notoriously unscrupulous morals to contribute to a thriving underground organ market. There isn't a place on Loom that is secure from the engineer turned thief, and her magical talents are sold to the highest bidder as long as the job defies their Dragon oppressors. 

Cvareh would do anything to see his sister usurp the Dragon King and sit on the throne. His family's house has endured the shame of being the lowest rung in the Dragons' society for far too long. The Alchemist Guild, down on Loom, may just hold the key to putting his kin in power, if Cvareh can get to them before the Dragon King's assassins.

When Ari stumbles upon a wounded Cvareh, she sees an opportunity to slaughter an enemy and make a profit off his corpse. But the Dragon sees an opportunity to navigate Loom with the best person to get him where he wants to go. 

He offers her the one thing Ari can't refuse: A wish of her greatest desire, if she brings him to the Alchemists of Loom. 

My Thoughts: 
This was fantastic! A very enjoyable high fantasy with amazing worldbuilding and memorable characters. 

Arianna is the infamous White Wraith, a Master Rivet that left the Alchemist's Guild after the Dragon King of Nova took over all of Loom. She's talented and mysterious and hates dragons. To be honest, I had an issue with her character at first, mostly due to her seemingly narrow-minded and cynical attitude towards everyone other than her young apprentice, Florence. But I loved seeing her walls come down brick by brick as the story went on. She's pretty badass and is hell bent on vengeance. 

Cvareh is a dragon that offers Ari a boon to take him to the Alchemist's Guild. He has a plan that could change the lives of both the inhabitants of Loom and Nova. With the help of Florence, Ari soon comes to trust the dragon just enough to get them across Loom without getting themselves killed.

I love the worldbuilding! There are two worlds; Loom and Nova. Loom is where the Fenthri reside under the rule of the Dragon King whom lives in Nova, which is in the sky above the cloudline. 

The dragons live 'in the sky' but they are not your typical winged dragons. They can fly, but only thanks to help of gliders that are powered by their magic. 
The best way I can describe these dragons, or how I envisioned them anyway, was that they are like the Argonians from the popular Elder Scrolls RPG games (Skyrim, Oblivion, etc) just without tails and maybe a more human face. They have reptilian-like skin that is brightly colored, sharp teeth, and claws.
Fenthri are mostly similar to humans but they have grey skin.
Chimeras are Fenthri that have had certain organs replaced with magical dragon organs and have endured dragonblood transfusions. Because of this, they have magic themselves. 

This is such a unique new world/s and when you add in all the action, steampunk elements, the Five Guilds (that you can test yourself online to see which one you might be in), and the unique characters, you get an amazing story. Elise Kova did an amazing job with this and I'm super eager to continue this series! 

My Rating: 4.5 stars

2017 Series Enders Reading Challenge

This challenge is hosted by Sandy from Somewhere Only We Know and Holly from Words Fueled By Love.

You can learn more and sign up for this challenge HERE

One of my big goals last year was to finish more series and I'd like to continue that this year. I start more series than I can count and if I don't focus on finishing them asap, years will have gone by and I will have forgotten enough that I would have to read them all over. So I'm determined to marathon more series this year. 

I have a few series that I will be finishing this year and a few series that I hope to start and finish as well. Only the last book in the series counts for this challenge so hopefully I can read through plenty of series this year!

I was able to finish 5 series in 2016 but without knowing more of which books might be coming out I'm going to keep my goal at 5 series! 

Series with only the last book left to read:

 Series that I hope to start and finish this year:
(first and last book)

Flights of Fantasy 2017 Challenge Sign Up & Goals

This year long challenge is hosted by Alexa Loves Books & Rachel of Hello, Chelly.

You can learn more about this challenge and sign up HERE.

This is my second time participating in this challenge. I was a lazy participant last year though and never linked up or joined in on any giveaways or anything. My biggest goal for this challenge this year is to LINK UP and socialize with others. 

I may possibly be joining in on the Flights of Fantasy Book Club as well but most likely only for the last quarter. The book for that quarter is Air Awakens by Elise Kova and I had planned to read that book in 2017 anyway (as soon as I buy a copy anyway). If you are thinking about participating, I highly suggest the Patricia A. McKillip reading discussion. She's one of my favorite fantasy authors. 

I think that this year I will give myself a goal of 25 fantasy novels. This is way more than the goal I set for myself last year (that I beat multiple times over.) I had planned on reading more classics this year but fantasy is my favorite genre so I don't think that reading 25 books will be difficult at all. 

Here are a few fantasy books I plan on reading this year!

Will you be participating in this or any other challenges this year? 

2017 Beat the Backlist Challenge

Beat the Backlist is a year-long reading challenge hosted by NovelKnight.

You can learn more and/or sign up here.

This challenge seems to have it all (readathons, mini-challenges, and even bookstagram challenges) so when I saw it I immediately knew I wanted to participate. My main focus for 2017 is to read more backlist books and knock out a portion of my gigantic TBR pile.

 2017 is going to be a very busy year for me so small commitments are key to my reading (and blogging) success right now but I've already committed to reading more of my own books so I'm going to give myself a goal of at least 40 books from my shelves that are published before 2017.

I'd rather not list out all the books I plan on reading for this challenge but I do have a handy visual list on listchallenges of my 2017 TBR! The first 50 or so books are books on my physical TBR! 

Reading updates can be tagged with #backlistbooks

Readathon dates for March, June, September, & December are to be announced. 

January 2017 TBR

Happy New Year!

2016 flew by so quickly and I'm kind of still reeling at the fact that it's already a new year. I always enjoy the beginning of the year though. I'm a list maker and I spend quite a bit of time on my goals, resolutions, TBR list, and more.
I'm going to continue with my monthly TBR's that I started half way through last year because they really help me visually with what I need to read vs. what I want to read (because that's just how it goes in the reviewing world). 

I've gone a bit farther than just this month with my TBR though and have created a year long TBR for 2017 on listchallenges if you are interested in checking  that out! 

So here are a few books I am going to dig into this month!
Let me know if you've read any of these or if I should make any a top of the list priority!

For Review

1. Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

2. The Falconer by Elizabeth May

Lists (Books on special lists, my original tbr, or film adaptations)

1. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (I'll be reading this to my daughter)

2. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
3. The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

For Fun (Other books I just really want to read)
1. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 
2. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
3. Gemina by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
4.Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling

Maybe (Books I borrowed and may need to  return)
1. Ever the Hunted by Erin Summerill
2. The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket

The Sunday Post #46 - Happy New Year!

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer

It's a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things you received, share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead, and more.

Happy new year!!!!
I hope you all had a lovely night and aren't too hung over to enjoy the first day of the new year.
(Book hangovers count, of course.)

I'm attempting to start the new year off right by remembering to write up my Sunday Post! Yay! Now I can strike that off my to-do list. :)

I was gone most of Saturday and was not able to type up the extensive Stacking the Shelves post I meant to share since I've accumulated quite a few books and bookish things this month so I'm just going to do a quick recap via photos right here. :)

Thrift store hauls that are mixed together a bit.

A photo posted by Lazy Day Lit (@lazydaylit) on Dec 26, 2016 at 11:17am PST

My Christmas haul. 
My hubby spoiled me quite a bit this year. He got me the 2nd illustrated Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts, the 3 funko pops, the HP cauldron mug, and the TOG coloring book. The 4 books on the left are from my sister and mother and the book marks were handpainted by my sister. The book washi tape was a little stocking stuffer gift to myself. :)

This Past Week On The Blog
I shared a list of the 100 books I read in 2016 on listchallenges.
I reviewed Heartless by Marissa Meyer. 

Coming Soon
My January TBR, my goals and resolutions, a few challenges I'm participating in... you know, the obligatory beginning of the year posts. Plus a couple of long awaited reviews! 

Books I Finished This Week

What I'm Currently Reading

 I'm fighting to keep my eyes open as I type this so I'm just going to leave you with a Happy New Year and a heartfelt wish that 2017 will be amazing for you all!