The Sunday Post - #1

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ The Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~this meme was inspired in part by ~ In My Mailbox~ It's a chance to share News. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

Because I already participate in the In My Mailbox meme, I'm just going to use this one as way to recap my week.

THIS PAST WEEK:

I hosted my first giveaway. Happy Birthday to Me & 100th Blog Post Giveaway. It ran from June 21st (my birthday) to June 27th. I had 158 entries, and the winner, Ephrielle Miles, chose a hardback copy of City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare. A worthy choice in my opinion. (You can read my review of City of Lost Souls here.) Thanks again to everyone who participated in that giveaway.

I also had my largest In My Mailbox post yet. Receiving a total of 9 books this week. I try not to request more books than I can review, but this was the first week I've been approved for books published by Harlequin. (Thank you so much Harlequin!)

While I'm on the subject of publishers and NetGalley, I also received my first auto-approval from Curiosity Quills Press. A big shot-out to those guys and big thanks for that.

I was contacted for the first time from an author requesting a review of his work. Jazon Dion Fletcher and Skull Flowers which is featured in my In My Mailbox post also. And then just as I was checking my email eariler, I received another request from an author to review his work as well. I don't have all the details worked out on that one yet, so I won't go into detail here, except that I'm obviously excited about all of this.

I was tagged for the Liebster Blog Award. That was a surprise and an awesome lot of fun. I had the opportunity to visit the pages of some bloggers I didn't already know. As I mention in my post, I couldn't really find much in my google search for the origins for this award, but whoever created it, I thank you. It's a great way to boost the confidence of a small-time blogger and help him/her get even more involved in this wonderful community.

I participated in Top 10 Tuesday where this week's topic was Top 10 Characters That Remind Me of Myself or Someone I Know In Real Life.

And finally, I reviewed Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore and What I Didn't Say by Keary Taylor.

UPCOMING THIS WEEK:

For those that read my post Happy Birthday to Me & 100th Blog Post or my In My Mailbox - #9 (from last week), you will remember that I made the mistake of going shopping for myself the week of my birthday and ended up with some duplicates. I had already decided to do my Happy Birthday to Me & 100th Blog Post Giveaway and give the winner the option to choose between 6 books. The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead was one of the options for that giveaway and also one of the books I received as a duplicate for my birthday. So if the winner had chosen The Golden Lily, I was just going to ship them my extra copy. However, as it was stated above, she did not. So I'll be hosting another giveaway starting on July 4th, in celebration of Independence Day, giving away my extra copy of The Golden Lily. This giveaway will end July 13th. So be on the lookout for that. (You can read my review of The Golden Lily here.)

That's it for my first Sunday Post and blog related news this week. What's been going on in your blogging/book reading worlds this week? Let me know!