My Life In Random

Here is a mishmash of bookish things for you today in no particular order coming from one girl's heat-stricken brain.

Recently, my life has been made up of finishing off working on ALL the books I've already self-published (more on that very soon) and reading. You might or might not know if you have read my blog before that I ADORE finding great books under the 'psychological thriller' bracket but having said that, I've found it hard to find great ones (I talk about it here and recommend a rather good one too).

Between working on my own books, I have been ravenously devouring any book I can get my hands on SO, when I got a generic email from Amazon offering me a free eBook if I joined their newsletter, I JUMPED at the chance. Not only was it free, it was a psychological thriller (YAY) and even better, it was for one of Rachel Abbott's book, Sleep Tight. I have wanted to read her books for ages seeing as she is one of the most successful self-published authors out there - she has sold I think about 1.5 million copies to date.

*Images with kind permission from the author*

My first Rachel Abbott book was not a disappointment and I found Sleep Tight to be clever, tense and ever so gripping with lots of twists and turns right until the very end. After finishing it, I was eager to read more of her work and saw that she was selling her latest book, Stranger Child for only 99p on Amazon (deal just on the Kindle version). Give me a cheap book offer and I'm all over it like a rash and again, the book was a great little read - I maybe didn't enjoy it as much as the first but I still would highly recommend it. If I had one criticism of both of her books it would be that I found the detective and his sidekick (who appear in all her books) to be pretty one-dimensional but really, with these kind of stories, it doesn't matter in the slightest. Joining the self-publishing world only recently myself, it's nice to be in such talented company (and ever so inspirational too). I will definitely be reading her other two books at some point but for now, to be blunt, I can't afford it. I should also quickly mention that you must read Sleep Tight before Stranger Child as even though they are standalone books, a small part of the plot from Sleep Tight is resolved in Stranger Child. You can buy Sleep Tight here & Stranger Child here.

Cover LUST

I mean, LOOK AT IT!
I WANT TO TOUCH YOU AGAIN!
I MISS YOU!

Now onto something baffling. I am going to talk a bit about E. L. James' latest book Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey As Told by Christian (the clue is in the title). When I found out this was going to be released, I reserved it at my local library and incredibly the day after publication, it was available to pick up (oh how I LOVE libraries). My reason for reading it was purely down to curiosity. I am not going to go into how I felt about the book itself but I will say how smitten I am with the cover. When I first saw pictures of it, I wasn't that bothered but seeing it in the flesh is something else entirely.

When I got it, I spent an unhealthy amount of time not only looking at it, but stroking it as if it was some kind of pet. It is now back at the library but I am having major cover withdrawals. I now really want to buy it. Has anyone ever bought a book SOLELY for the cover? What a ridiculously stupid dilemma to be in. The book is what it is and fans of the series will get what they want ... but I have to say that if a man repeatedly called me baby, he would be marched into that blasted red room of pain until the word was never mentioned ever, EVER again.

Until next time (baby - ew).