Tea Tuesday #4

Life this week

Ok, so I missed last week’s Tea Tuesday post. By the time I remembered it was already Wednesday. Also, I had a blog slump last week.

Excuses aside😁, I’m pushing myself to post today despite it being a busier-than-usual day.

Now, what have I been up to?

I had a day out in town this weekend and will be posting a separate post on that with loads of pictures! You’ll get to see how a bookshop looks like here in Sri Lanka and some other everyday places.

Here are some shots from my window:

Did you know that rainbows are actually complete circles? So, this is actually half a rainbow!

What am I reading?

I finished the 3 I mentioned last time as planned. And DNF-ed two books because I found one boring and the other unlikeable. My tip? Don’t push yourself to review a book that has nothing to keep you from reading on. Set a percentage limit, say 30% or 50%, to decide if you’ll finally DNF. Time saved here means more time for my other ARCs!

I’m currently reading ISAN by Mary Ting, a YA Assassin story, and it’s not really going too well. Next on my TBR is Legacy in Legend by Barbara Pietron, a YA Paranormal-Suspense novel.

I decided to join Edelweiss+ yesterday after some hesitation. I was intimidated by the lack of intuitiveness of their website, the large names in publishing, and was on an ARC request diet. It turns out that it’s quite easy to request books on Edelweiss(what a name, eh?) and I’m confident I’ll know most of the nooks and crannies on the website in due time.

I downloaded these 2 books, no request required:

A Winter’s Promise

by Christelle Dabos

Ten After Closing

by Jessica Bayliss

Not so bad, huh? Looks promising, actually!

I requested 5 other books(all publishing from September onwards, so I don’t have to hold back on requesting those, hehe). I’m now looking for books with that extra oomph to share with you all here.

On NetGalley, I saw that I got declined for The Similars by Rebecca Hanover and I was genuinely bummed because it sounds like an interesting Dystopian YA.

But then, guess what happened?

I went over to Edelweiss…and saw that I was approved for the same book! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! YESSSSSSSS!!! I couldn’t believed my eyes. I was so stoked! Still am😄

I LOVE these kind of optical illusion-esque covers!

I also got approved for a book from none other than HarperTeen. I can’t believe they approved it for me! ME!

This one is supposedly a Narnia type of story, it reminds me of ‘The Magicians’ by Lev Grossman.

Thank you, God. And the publishers. And Edelweiss. And James Cudney for convincing me to try out the world of ARC requesting just by one of his posts. You warned me it was a rabbit hole, and aye, it was.

Oh, I would also like to thank YOU guys for all your wonderful and kind support in my previous Tea Tuesday post. You guys ROCK!!! THANK YOU and a thousand hugs💝

Question of the week

Today, I saw a post on a Facebook group for book bloggers that someone put up the e-ARCs that they received up for grabs. They’ve even made it a subscription-like service where you can get a trial as well. It was quite a dramatic thing to happen but I’m not really surprised. This was bound to happen as with anything in the world: where there are good people, there are also bad nuts. I used to read and later on offer pirated books(for a short time, and not ARCs) but then quit once I realised that it was wrong and, to put it simply, stealing.

So, what practice do publishers employ to prevent this from happening? Are there even any?

I’m wondering if the publishers could insert some identifying code/element in an e-ARC file so that you would know the culprit in a jiffy. Bang-smack, you got your guy!

Do you have any smart ideas to combat this thievery?