The Kari AnnAlysis

Posts Tagged ‘anna godbersen’

While we all love the clothes and jewelry and shoes and electronics at Christmas, there are a select few of us that live for the bookish gifts we will receive.

Every year I say this, but this year I hit the jackpot on the bookie gifts.

Here are the books I got:

What I normally do at Christmas is pick up a bunch of books I want and give them to my brother to give to me. Good deal, right? This year, I stuck with books from a series that I need. I love all of these series’ and can’t wait to read all of them.

I also got some awesome bookmarks this Christmas:

I’ve posted before about magnetic bookmarks. These are lifesavers for me. I always throw my book in my bag and go. With a regular bookmark, I am normally trying to remember which page I was on, because it’s almost always guaranteed to fall out. But with magnetic bookmarks, I never lose them, and I can put them on the line where I finished so I know exactly where to start again.

Now, I know I just talked about regular bookmarks and my lack of love for them, but how awesome is my wooden bookmark on the left? I got this at the Bob Evans Farm Festival this year. There was a booth with hundreds of bookmarks, each with a different design cut out of it. As soon as we found the booth, my mom and I started searching for one that would suit me. We were almost at the end and giving up until we found the on with the state of West Virginia, my new home state. I love it! (The state and the bookmark)

I didn’t take a picture of my gift cards, but I got so many gift cards, I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself. Along with my friend WriteMeg! , I am going to make 2011 the year I read what I want. I’m not changing much about my habits, but if I want to read something this year, I’m not going to hesitate. I’m going to jump on it! So, for me this year, gift cards are amazing! I got $100 worth of gift cards from Borders this year and $50 worth from Barnes and Noble (for my Nook). I have no idea where I am even going to start with these!

I have already made my first, after Christmas purchase for the year. My husband and I went shopping the day after Christmas, which I normally avoid. We both got some pretty good deals, but the best deal was this:

I follow Ally on Twitter and have wanted to read this book forever. But I am very reluctant about buying books. I have two bookshelves full at my house and am probably the biggest tight wad you’ll ever meet. So, when I was scanning the sale books at Borders this weekend, I jumped on this copy of Heist Society. It was on sale for $5.99. I figured I had enough in gift cards to make this purchase. Little did I know that I had $5 in Borders Bucks, so I ended up paying $1.05 for this hardcover copy. I was ecstatic and my husband was laughing hysterically. He asked if they knew me by name in Borders lol

So, as you can see, I’m extremely happy with my Christmas goods. What did you get this year????

In Anna Godbersen’s second novel in the Luxe series, the New Yorkers are finally starting to move on from the mysterious death of Elizabeth Holland. Her sister, Diana, is going on numerous dates with the city’s finest bachelors, her fiance Henry is coming out of his mourning phase and her best friend Penelope is waiting in Henry’s shadows. But what some know, and others wonder about, is that the story they heard about Liz, may not be the truth and it will soon all be crystal clear. And what a better way to end the 19th Century than with an amazing wedding with a happy bride and a bribed groom? A love square that became a triangle is now back to two.

Ok, so if you’ve been following my posts, you already know I accidentally read Envy before Rumors. While it wasn’t on purpose, it kind of worked out. I understood that I missed some things, like Elizabeth coming back and Henry’s wedding, but there wasn’t so much missing that I was confused. Going back and reading this after the 3rd one filled in all the holes. It was different, but nice. There are many books in a series where this wouldn’t work.

The thing I like least about these books are they are extremely long. Each book is 400+ pages and I catch myself, numerous times, skimming. I love the fact that I feel like I am there, in 1899 in a hand made dress in the plum middle of NYC winter. But, I just find myself not caring about all of the small details and wanting to get to the juice.

The drama, as with the rest of the series is great. I love how she starts the book with the ending, then goes back to a previous time and works back to the ending. It keeps me guessing how we will get there. I also like, as I have said before, at the beginning of the chapters how she has little snippets from the society pages. I am still on a quest to get in touch with Godbersen to see if these are real snippets and if the characters are based on real life events.

I give Rumors 3 bookmarks. I liked it, but didn’t love it.

The Luxe Series:
Luxe
Rumors
Envy

As we travel back to NYC, quite a bit has changed. Elizabeth is back, Diana is still in love, but now it’s with a married man, Penelope is unhappily married but will do anything to fix it and Lina, well she now goes by Carolina and has climbed the ranks quickly.

It’s time for Elizabeth to put her past in the past and get back into society. This means she must accept a trip to Florida with “the group”, including her former fiance Henry, who is now married to Penelope and had a tryst with Di. WOWZA love triangle!

But it’s not all drinks and the beach, because of a death, one guest leaves early, two join the military, a marriage is all but br0ken and at least one society girl has a baby on board.

I love this series because I love diving into the past. I’ve never been one good with history, but anything involving royalty and the wealthy, I am in. The beauty and luxury of this series keeps me gripped. The writing is amazing and makes me feel like I’m 100+ years in the past. But what I love about it most is that although we are in a completely different century, there is still the same drama. There are still the catty girls and the drama love triangles.

I do admit I made a boo boo here. Envy is the 3rd in the series. I skipped over Rumors, which I’ll make next on my list and will surely be angry because I’ll already know the outcome. Oh well.

I give Envy 4 bookmarks.

The Luxe Series:
Luxe
Rumors

Teaser Tuesday is held by Should be Reading. Now you are supposed to just open to a page and pick out a sentence or two. I always cheat. I find an awesome part of the book and usually do more than two sentences.

This week’s book is Envy by Anna Godbersen. It’s part of the Luxe series.

Pg 8: The long black chiffon skirt of her gown trailed behind her as she approached the entrance, and she batter her fan open to modestly cover her face. She always did this when Barnard escorted her, because they discussed everyone in detail, and so it was prudent to obscure the view of her mouth from any chance lip-readers. Her hair was drawn into a bun in the back, and her curls descended diagonally on either side of her forehead toward her ears. A black leather belt marked the narrowness of her waist, and at the middle point of her princess neckline was a glower made of ivory lace petals.

Ahhh the luxury of being an it-girl at the turn of the 20th Century.

What are you reading this week?

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I know I did and my bookshelf reflects that. No more wasting time, look at the loot I brought in this year:

A couple of years ago, I got one of the Private Series books and made my goal this year to get the rest. I had a gift card from the wedding that I bought the first few. I had my brother get me a couple and my mother-in-law got me the rest. I can’t WAIT to start this series.

Since we do Christmas with my brother at both of my parents house, I have him get me books at both places. At mom’s house he got me the Private books and at dad’s house, he got me The Luxe books 2 and 3. I absolutely LOVED the first one.

And I had my dad get me the 3rd in the Poseur Series called Petty in Pink. This was actually one of the first YA books I read when I started reading like a feign. It’s very cute and I’ve gotten one for Christmas the past 3 years.

It wasn’t all about the books though, when I finally get my TBR list down to about 25 (yes I have about 40 books on my shelf to read right now lol), I have plenty of gift cards. I got $80 worth of gift cards for Christmas this year. My family sure does know how to make a girl happy. And if you look closely at the picture above, my sister-in-law got me a Borders card WITH A WEDDING PIC ON IT! How cool is that? I will definitely be keeping that card after I spend it

It wasn’t all about the Christmas presents this week though. I also got two books from the author/publisher. First, Pet Peeves is the 3rd book by West Virginia author Bart Harper. I actually just gave a copy of this away on my blog. I’ve read all of Bart’s books and am excited to start on this. I imagine I’ll be agreeing with most of his peeves and will have many of my own to add.

The other, Truly Madly, I won on Librarything.com. I also won this on Goodreads.com so now I have 2 copies. Within the next week, I’ll start a giveaway so I can get it out and let you read it before it hits the shelves in February!

I got one more bundle this week that was sent to work and must have come on Christmas Eve. I had the day off and just knew I would get something. My boss told me today he accidentally took it with him thinking it was a resume tape. I can’t wait until Wednesday to get it! I am hoping it’s my presents for the Holiday Swap that I took part in!

Did you guys get any great reads this year????