Lots going on this week, as my city enters a little lockdown and we are all housebound. Lucky I had recently gathered plenty of exciting new books to read. I have been busy on the writing front too 🙂 Here is a collection of my random thoughts and pictures from the last week or so!
Cover Reveal for my upcoming September 2021 book release!
❤️❤️Cover reveal!!❤️❤️ for my upcoming September #LoveOzYA novel ROAD TRIPPING WITH PEARL NASH :)
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I think the cover is so super pretty!!!!
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HERE IS THE BLURB:
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The summer is finally here, and Pearl Nash is on a mission to save her slowly disintegrating friendship with a whirlwind end-of-year road trip that is definitely, absolutely, most positively going to solve all her problems.
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Except, instead of her best friend Daisy’s feet on her dash, suddenly Pearl ends up stuck in the middle of the desert beside Obi Okocha, a boy with a mega-watt smile and an endlessly irritating attitude. Tasked with delivering him to the most epic end-of-year party ever, located in a beach shack in literal middle-of-nowhere woop woop, Pearl Nash is certain that nothing could be worse than this.
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She’s wrong.
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Add in a breakdown, multiple arguments, an AWOL nana and a kiss that was most definitely a huge mistake, and suddenly Pearl has the perfect ingredients for the perfect disaster.
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Road Tripping with Pearl Nash is a story about home and family, about breaking apart and fusing together, and, of course, about love.
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Please add it to you Goodreads tbr if you’d like to 🙂 😍😍😍
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I really hope people like the cover!!! I am very excited and think it is so lovely. I cannot wait to hold a copy in my hands when it comes from the printer!❤️❤️❤️
Thinking about writing and notebooks this week
I’ve been spending a lot of time staring at my writing notebooks on my bookshelf lately. They date back years and years, but I love keeping them and flicking back through all those notes every now and then. I love the idea of filling up an entire shelf just with my notebooks one day!
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I write all my notes for novels by hand, and do all my brainstorming that way. It feels the easiest and most fun for me :)
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Anyone else into notebooks? I get so excited every time I go buy a new batch, haha. It’s the small things in life! ❤️❤️
Although I am not actually a morning person, I always feel so good when I’ve gotten up early to do a writing session. It puts me in a positive state of mind for the rest for the day! 🥰
Here is a photo of me hanging out at home with my lovely husband💓
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I have been pretty consistent with my morning writing routine lately, which always makes me very happy! I’m making lots of headway through my current project, which feels super exciting! I’m reworking an older draft and have added an extra 45k words to it as I work through and change everything! This one is very very different to anything I’ve done before and will be a whopper of a book, so I am a little nervous, but I’m enjoying the experience of writing this manuscript SO MUCH that it’s all I want to do right now! So that is nice and motivating 😂
Drawing for relaxation
Anyone else have a hobby that is great for relaxing and de-stressing?
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I’ve been getting back into drawing lately! I love doing little patterns while watching tv or whatever, and find it is a great way to relax the mind :)
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This is my latest pattern, I reckon it kind of looks like Howl’s Moving Castle from the Studio Ghibli movie (one of my absolute all time favourite movies ever!). Or maybe that is just me who thinks that, haha.
And some more patterns above that I’ve been having fun with lately.
What books I’ve been thinking about lately
Here is a collection of books I’ve been reading, buying, or thinking about lately 🙂
Anyone else read this above book from the picture?📚
It is translated from the original Japanese and had me sobbing behind my face mask on a plane (coming back from a writing retreat at the incredible Varuna the Writing House in the Blue Mountains!). The end was so bittersweet and uplifting and I think this will be a favourite read for me this year. It is marketed as adult fiction, but feels like it could be YA, with all the characters being students at a high school.
I LOVED this book. Wow.❤️❤️
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Oh and I am obsessed with this cover!!
I am a little bit obsessed with Shaun Tan’s book Tales From The Inner City. 💓 It is honestly one of the most beautiful and strangest things I have ever read and I am still making my way very slowly through each story. I think this is a book to be savoured, not rushed. Gosh, it is so unsettling and beautiful!!
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This artwork is from my current favourite story in the book, which is about a child’s memory of the ghosts of horses, running through the night-time inner city. Every time I read this one it takes my breath away. 🐎
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This book is definitely a favourite!
So excited to have picked up my copy of the latest #LOVEOZYA fantasy series by @helenscheuerer 😍😍 This one was published last week!
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I’m so excited to read this one but am saving it for holiday reading next month!!
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Here is the blurb:
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A deadly contest. A vaulting ambition. How far will one cyren go to win?
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Mighty cyrens have ruled the ancient lair of Saddoriel for centuries. A cavernous fortress, a subterranean labyrinth of tunnels and levels, powered by magic and music…
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From the moment she was born, Roh, the daughter of an infamous criminal, has been despised by her own kind. Restricted to the Lower Sector and forced to work as a common bone cleaner, she has always believed she belongs above: where lies adventure… and power.
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Opportunity arises in the form of the Queen’s Tournament, a treacherous set of trials that could see the victor crowned ruler of the entire lair. Up against the most cunning, dangerous cyrens in all the realms, does Roh stand a chance?
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A Lair of Bones is the first gripping book in the dark fantasy quartet, Curse of the Cyren Queen.
Picked up a new book, shown with our cat above! Anyone else read this one? I’m excited to get into it 🙂
And that is it from me this week on this little random update of thoughts and photos.
Thanks for reading.
Poppy.