Stacking the Shelves #3

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews to share the books we got recently.

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My books are color coordinated this week :P
Only Team Red books arrived this week, Team Blue was from several weeks ago. I'm still waiting on a bunch of orders to arrive.

Team Blue 

This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers  (won from Heather @ Book Stacks On Deck)

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Team Red

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake
ARC of Deity by Jennifer L. Armentrout (won from one of her blog contests last month)


That's my haul for today and special thanks to Heather and Jennifer! :)

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Also, if you don't mind please take a look at my previous post in which I shared the designs (larger sized versions!) I made for the Sweet Hope cover design contest held by Bewitched Bookworms!

Version 1

Version 2

You can vote for your favorite cover designs  HERE

Entries for Sweet Hope Cover Design Contest!

(Clicky image to head over to where the contest is held!)
EDIT; 25/08  VOTING IS NOW OPEN. TO VOTE CLICK HERE Main post: Clicky

Rules & Guidelines

• Design a cover for Sweet Hope
• The contest will run two rounds of voting and you can enter 3 different covers!
• Blog about the contest and YOUR entries, and let us know your vision of the cover!
• If you do not have a blog, then post on pinteretst,  facebook, twitter or tumblr with the tags #SweetEvil #SweetHope #CoverDesignContest
• send your cover entry to me : mrsvanquish@me.com and leave a comment with the link!
• all entries must be submitted until August 22nd (Wednesday)
• Contest is open International! 

All cover design entries will be uploaded and organized on a pinterest board and on facebook so that everyone can see them for the voting process! 

Note: Paint and Gimp are free photo editing programs you can use to design a cover. Of course, there’s Photoshop, the queen of programs. You can also just choose an image you think is perfect for the Sweet Hope cover, if you truly cannot use any of those programs. You do NOT need to to use Stock Images, own artwork is very welcome! But, you must own the rights  to use any of the images you use to design the cover!

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Here are my entries! :)

Version 1

Version 2

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Credits

Stock photo of the girl: Perfume7 by faestock

Background: Enchanted forest 5 by CathleenTarawhiti

Photo of guy: I no longer have the link but I found it  from an old folder of images I saved. I think it was from MorgueFiles.

*The covers were just created for a fan contest and not for commercial use. No copyright infringement intended!

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Thoughts

I've been waiting for the opportunity to use the gorgeous photo by faestock since I first saw it ages ago! So when the contest popped up I immediately choose that! Due to my lack of skills I wasn't able to edit her hair to the really light blonde like the girl on the cover of Sweet Evil had from the original red of the model's hair. (See here and here) 

I tried my best to match the original cover of Sweet Evil  because I'm OCD about having matching book covers and the first cover sort of reflects the events at the end of the book one. If you've read it you know what happens. >.<  For the 'hope' in the title I emphasized the rose the girl (Anna) holds in her hands near her heart to give her sort of a hopeful/wishful feel. It won't be such 'sweet hope' with the guy leaving huh? o.o I know the cover doesn't really have to match the title at all but I like the little bits of symbolism. 

Initially I only planned to submit the first design but after playing around with it more I made the solo girl version! Because there's a lot more space of the second cover I decided to touch up on the play of darkness and light to make it look more dramatic. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. :)

Onyx Book Trailer

Have you seen the book trailer for Onyx, #2 in the LUX series by Jennifer L. Armentrout yet? It just went live yesterday! Watch for Daemon and Katy awesomeness! :)

Giveaway Post #5

To celebrate her birthday in July, Taneika of Flipping Through the Pages is having a giveaway! One winner will win one of the books below! To enter, click HERE.

(image taken from here)

Incandescent Enhancement is celebrating 450 followers!

Click the button below to enter!

Some of the books up for grabs are Throne of Glass, Glitch, Defiance and more!
Fall into Summer with Fiction Freak!  Win a book released between August 20 to November 31st !  (under $10 or...$13? I'm not sure because she listed 2 prices) Click the button below to enter!

Don't forget, Ivy Book Bindings' 150 follower giveaway is still going on! Click HERE to enter.

     For her 500 followers giveaway, Rotten Apple Reads is giving away  

a choice of 3 amazing prize packs!

Enter here.

Pack #1 The Golden Lily, Vampire Academy and Shatter Me
Pack #2 Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy!
#Pack 3 Torment, Passion and Fallen in Love (Fallen series)



Stand a chance to win ARCs of BETA and Monument 14 and a finished copy of The Forsaken in  The Midnight Garden's Dystopia/Post-apocalyptic giveaway!

Summer Wrap-up Read-a-Thon

        As mentioned above, I joined the Summer Wrap-up Read-a-Thon hosted by Jude @ In Between and Jennifer @ Some Like It Paranormal!  I wasn't planning to at first because I found out about it after it started and I thought sign-ups were closed. Turns out I still could! =P

The books I plan to read:

1. Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta 10/08

2. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

3. The Assassin and the Empire by Sarah J. Maas 9/08

4. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas 11/08

        Since they are only a few days left I think I'll go in with 2 books and a novella. There may be only 2 books but Froi has close to 600 pages and Night Circus is 500 pages+ in small print. (I'm not even sure if I can finish *very slow reading pace lately*) I'm still waiting for my Throne of Glass to arrive so I'll read the last novella first.

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My progress

9th August 

• Froi of the Exiles : Started at pg.74; read till pg.319
• The Assassin and the Empire : Started at 0%; finished at 100%  | Review

10th August 

Copy of Throne of Glass finally arrived so I'm adding it to the list. Not sure if I can finish Night Circus at this rate. o.o

• Froi of the Exiles : Started at pg.320; finished at pg.596
• Throne of Glass : Started reading; read till pg.31

11th August

• Throne of Glass : Started at pg.32; finished at pg.406

12th August