Our Bundle of Joy

My husband and I are very proud to announce that our second bundle of joy had chosen to arrive on 27 September morning! She weighs 2.9kg (equivalent to 6.4 pounds) and we have not decided a name for her yet as we intend to consult a master based on her date and time of birth.

Despite my gynae's "warning" beforehand, I was still quite taken aback of her early arrival; after all my due date is supposed to be in the middle of October. Anyway, we are all very happy that both the baby and I are healthy and fine. I have also engaged a confinement lady so she is currently staying in our place and helps to take care of my baby and do some simple household chores and cooks for the family. Frankly speaking, I do not know what I would do without her assistance during this "recuperating" month.

Well, I hope everyone is doing great and had a great weekend! :-)

Picture taken at home

Picture taken at the hospital

When Twilight Burns

ISBN-13: 9780451224750
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Published: August 2008
354pp

First sentence: Victoria opened her eyes.

Victoria Gardella Grantworth de Lacy returns to London after her taut encounter and an attack with vampire Beauregard. Though she has her two vis bullae to thank for from being turned to an undead, she still feels the uncertainty as there is vampire blood flowing in her veins after all.

To complicate things, now she is unable to detect the vampires with her heightened senses and to make things worse, some vampires appear to be stalking the streets of London during the daylight and Victoria is held as a suspect behind all these mysterious attacks.

Besides fighting against the darkness in herself, she is also torn between Sebastian Vioget, the great grandson of Beauregard but is now taking his role as a Venator, and Maximilian Pesaro, an ex-Venator who had lost his power in order to break the control of vampire queen, Lilith.

I would say this instalment is focused more on Victoria fighting with her inner self, dealing with her emotional issues and her mixed feelings towards Sebastian and Max than the action scenes as compared to the other instalments. However, readers would be thrilled to read more of Lilith in this instalment as she is back into her actions and Victoria will come face to face with her again.

Colleen Gleason has once again succeeded in captivating her readers in When Twilight Burns with fine woven plots and compelling characters that will definitely leave them hunger for more. Be sure to look out for the next instalment As Shadows Fade to be released in March 2009.

Other Blogs' reviews:

Musings of a Bookish Kitty (Guest Appearance: Colleen Gleason)

Stainless Steel Droppings

Stephanie's Confessions of a Book-a-holic

The Way I See It

(Let me know if I have missed your review.)

Well, That Was Different!

What was the most unusual (for you) book you ever read? Either because the book itself was completely from out in left field somewhere, or was a genre you never read, or was the only book available on a long flight… whatever? What (not counting school textbooks, though literature read for classes counts) was furthest outside your usual comfort zone/familiar territory?

And, did you like it? Did it stretch your boundaries? Did you shut it with a shudder the instant you were done? Did it make you think? Have nightmares? Kick off a new obsession?

I read a lot of fiction books, and occasionally memoirs but I rarely read inspirational books. Although I find most of them useful and informative, sometimes I think the contents are a little too dry for my reading pleasure.

However, I find Brendon Burchard's Life's Golden Ticket (you may read my review here) unusual because although it is more of a motivational novel, it does not read like one because the author has skilfully attribute all the necessary points by a way of storytelling, and this is what made the book so interesting and a joy to read.

And then of course, with the attractive cover, there is no way I could turn this book down.

Thank You!

Proximidade! Award

To translate the gift from Portuguese to English, it means: "This blog invests and believes, the proximity" [meaning, that blogging makes us 'close' -being close through proxy].

They all are charmed with the blogs, where in the majority of its aims are to show the marvels and to do friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize, and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut, or that they propagate?

Then let’s try to give more attention to them! So with this prize we must deliver it to 8 bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this text.

I Love Your Blog Award

Alice, thank you so much for passing these two awards to me! I love your blog too because you always have so many things to share with your friends and readers. Also, thank you for your friendship! Here is a friendship quote for you:

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive,
and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
- Anais Nin

Because awards are meant to share, I would like to pass these awards to the following friends:

• Alice (back to you, my friend!)
• Julia
• Kathy
• Wendy
• Debi
• Nymeth
• Iliana
• Jen
• Rhinoa
• Darla
• Trish (Trish's Reading Nook)
• Trish (Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'?)
• J. Kaye
• Shana
• Kim
• Stephanie (Stephanie's Written Word)
• Stephanie (Stephanie's Confessions of a Book-a-holic)
• Gautami
• Ruth
• Valentina

I am very happy to know you ladies; and as always, thank you for taking the time to read my blog! :-)

Edited to Add (25 Sep):
I just noticed Iliana presented the above award to me too when I visited her blog earlier. Thank you so much, Iliana! :-D

Weekly Geeks #18

This week’s theme is: catch up on… something.

Some suggestions:
Catch up on….
…challenges
…organizing your sidebar
…updating lists of some sort (I need to deal with my giveaways list!)
…making links wherever (challenge lists, monthly reading summaries, etc.)
…bloghopping
…your TBR pile
…your library books
…updating your blogroll
…updating your reader
…???

How to:
1. Decide what you need to catch up on.
2. Write a post if you feel like it, telling your readers what you intend to catch up on. If you do that, you can sign Mr Linky right away with the link to that specific post.
3. Catch up!
4. Write a post near the end of the week (Thursday or Friday) summarizing how your catch-up week went. If you didn’t sign Mr Linky with your intentions post, sign it with your summary post.
5. Don’t forget to visit other Weekly Geeks and encourage them in their catching up!

Some of the things I need to catch up...

On my priority list will be getting things all ready for the arrival of my baby next month! I cannot believe that time flies by so quickly and in another three weeks' time (if the timing is accurate), I will be a mom again and will be holding my darling baby in my embrace soon! My blog may go hiatus for a while since I will be busy with my little one, but that does not mean I will give up blogging and not reading your blogs!

Then again, there are the reading challenges which I have participated and have yet to be completed! And of course I have no one to blame but myself since several of the books listed not read is due to my ever changing reading mood. I also get influenced by fellow book blogger friends' recommendations easily so I usually end up reading the books they suggested or reading the latest releases. It is one habit which is hard for me to break.

Coming up next is organising my bookshelves and/or TBR book piles. I need to pack those books which I read into a box so that the books not read could move into their places. As my bookshelves are already filled to the brim, I stack my other TBR pile into four towers in the storage room and all of them are taller than me! (My estimated height is 1.61 meters so go figure!) I got the 'look' from my husband because one of them collapsed last Sunday, hehe.

I also have to thank My Friend Amy for coming up with a great event like BBAW and this has allow me to explore many book blogs which are new to me, and that means I need to update my blogroll as well.

I think that is about all for me at the moment. What about you?

Teaser Tuesdays

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• Please avoid spoilers!

My teaser sentences for today:

"I don't sense any undead," she told Sebastian as she stepped on something horribly squishy. A rank odor squelched afresh into the air, and with her next step she felt something hard and cylindrical roll beneath her boot.

When Twilight Burns by Colleen Gleason (Pg 15)

Let's talk books this week

Let's talk books this week.

1. Name a few of your favorite books.
I have too many favourite books on my list, but I shall name a few which have made it as my top reads this year:

• The Treatment by Mo Hayder
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Sacred Cows by Karen E. Olson
• Blind Submission by Debra Ginsberg
• The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

2. Is there an author that you don't like, yet so many people seem to love?
Paulo Coelho. I wanted to like his books, but for some reason I just could not get into his stories.

3. Name a book to film adaptation that you really like. Name one you think was done poorly.
Whenever someone asks me if I would prefer to read a book or watch a movie first, I would always say, "Read the book first!". Naturally, one reason is that: a book offers more details than the movie, and so far I have not came across any book to film adaption that I really like. However, I really enjoyed watching Lord of the Rings, but it would be unfair of me to name this since I have yet to read the books.

As for a film adaptation which was done poorly, The Da Vinci Code sprang to my mind not because it was badly shot or anything, but it is just that some of the scenes were just not clear and was confusing. And this further conclude why I prefer reading a book than watching the film adaptation.

4. Where do you buy your books?
I love buying my books from brick and mortar bookstores, but occasionally I do buy them online too.

5. What genre do you read the most?
I always read a mixture of genres, but lately I have been reading a lot of paranormal and crime thrillers.

6. What genre do you dislike?
I do not have anything against any particular genre. I could only say I am not much of a sci-fi fan.

7. Is there a book that has changed your life?
Not really, but they did change my views on some issues in life.

8. Have you ever met an author? What author would you like to meet?
I wish I have! Some of the authors I would love to meet are: Neil Gaiman, Mo Hayder, Nora Roberts, Anne Stuart, Tana French and J K Rowling etc.