March 2011 Recap

Here is the list of books I read in March: (The links will take you to my reviews)

1. The Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean M Auel (read in Feb, reviewed in Mar)
2. The Valley of Horses - Jean M Auel (read in Feb, reviewed in Mar)
3. Darkfever - Karen Marie Moning (read in Feb, reviewed in Mar)
4. The Kissing Game - Aidan Chambers (read in Feb, reviewed in Mar)
5. Eighth Grade Bites - Heather Brewer
6. Lex Trent Fighting with Fire - Alex Bell
7. The Mammoth Hunters - Jean M Auel
8. The Darkest Room - Johan Theorin (guest review written by my Dad - his first ever review!)
9. The Plains of Passage - Jeam M Auel
10. Department 19 - Will Hill
11. Unseen - Rachel Caine
12. Delirium - Lauren Oliver
13. Grace - Morris Gleitzman (review coming soon)
14. The Shelters of Stone - Jean M Auel
15. Before I Die - Jenny Downham (review coming soon)
16. Between Shades of Gray - Ruta Sepetys (review coming soon)

March Books of the Month:

My top YA read in March:

Department 19 by Will Hill (read my review here)

My top adult read in March:

Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning (read my review here)

Event Reports:

I have been so lucky in March and was invited to some incredible events, I'm so glad that I live close enough to London that I was able to attend them all!  I'd like to say a massive thank you to all of the publishers for organising such amazing events.

• Back at the end February I was invited to attend 2 events with the fabulous Jean M Auel, author of the Earth's Children series.  The first event was for fans of the series to help decide what the main character Ayla looks like on the 3D augmented reality cover of the newest book The Land of Painted Caves and you can read my write up here.  Then later that evening there was another event with Jean M Auel and Professor Chris Stringer talking about the research that has gone into creating the series.  My write up for the second event is here.
• In March I was invited to the HarperCollins offices to attend the launch party for Department 19 by Will Hill.  It was a great party for a fantastic debut novel and you can read all about it here.
• The lovely Lynsey from Narratively Speaking invited me as her guest to the Hodder launch party for Delirium by Lauren Oliver.  It was such an amazing evening and great to meet Lauren who is absolutely lovely.  If you'd like to read more by write up is here.
• I was also able to attend the RHCB Teenage Kicks event with the fabulous authors Malorie Blackman, Jenny Downham and Bali Rai.  It was a really interesting event where the authors were interviewed by students and they'd come up with some fantastic questions.  My write up is here.
• The final event I attended was the Puffin Live Panel with authors Ruta Sepetys, Morris Gleitzman and Anna Perera.  I haven't had time to write up my event report yet but watch out for it later on this week.

Author's Animal Antics:

The Author's Animal Antics feature is kind of on hold at the moment, I am planning on bringing it back as a more regular feature at some point in the future but I just don't have as much time to organise it right now.  If you are an author who is interested in taking part though please get in contact (you can find out more about the feature here).  We did still have a wonderful post from the lovely Karen Mahoney this month though, thanks Karen!

• Karen Mahoney dropped by to chat about her cats Felix and Logan

Challenge Updates:

So these are the challenges I've decided to sign up for in 2011 (I may well end up adding others as the year goes on but we'll see what happens)

2011 100+ Reading Challenge - Read 37/100

2011 Horror & Urban Fantasy Challenge - Read 18/24

2011 Support Your Local Library Challenge - Read 5/25

2011 Debut Author Challenge - Read 10/12

2011 British Books Challenge - Read 12/12

2011 New Author Challenge - Read 21/50

NAC Mini Challenge - Steampunk (Feb 2011) - Read 2/5 COMPLETE (This challenge was to read up to 5 steampunk books in February, I knew I wouldn't have time to read 5 so I'm happy with my total of 2)