Fantastic Fives- My Five Year Anniversary Stop

Hey everyone welcome to my stop on the Fantastic Fives Celebration! 

Have you heard of the event? Well Two Chicks On Books (Me) and Me My Shelf And I decided to host a massive birthday celebration for all book blogs turning 5 this year! 5 is a pretty huge milestone and we wanted to CELEBRATE!

5 years is quite a milestone in the book blogging community! I'm sure you've seen blogs you love come and go over the time that you have been here for many reasons. We all know it can be hard to keep up, to read as much as you feel needs reading, finding the time to post – and so we want to put the focus on those that have made it to 5 – like Amber and I!

Here's all the details of the event!

Who

Any book blog that has already, or will turn 5 years old before the end of 2015!

What and When

Starting on November 8th and lasting as long as it needs to – each day a new blog will have the spotlight on them with a small interview and a giveaway of their choice. 

Now on to my post!

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

My name is Jaime my 5 year blogaversary will be on December 30! I started blogging because I love books and wanted to share my love with other people. Over the years my blogging has actually helped me turn my love of books into a career! I started out as an intern at Entangled Publishing and was hired as a publicist and now am the Publicity and Marketing Director at Month9Books! I also co-own a blog tour company with one of my BFF's and fellow Fantastic Fiver Rachel from Fiktshun!

Outside my reading/blogging life. I am a huge sports fan I love NASCAR and The Oakland Raiders and A's! I love a good beer and cooking, And I love TV and movies! 

How did you get started blogging? 

I was a stay at home caretaker and I read all the time. I saw a few book blogs around and though "hey I could do that". So I asked a friend if she would like to do a blog together since I didn't think I'd have the time to do it alone. And Two Chicks on Books was born! About a year in I parted ways with my partner though since I found myself doing most of the work but I kept the name since people already knew it.

How did you pick the name for your blog?

Well there were 2 of us to start so it seemed like a cute name.

If you could go back in time and tell your newbie blogger self 1 thing what would it be?

Don't have a partner! I am much happier running the blog on my own. Also don't feel like you have to post a review for every book you read or participate in every meme you see.

What have you learned in your 5 years of blogging?

That you need to blog your way. There is no right or wrong way to blog. I've learned a bunch of other stuff too but I think this is the most important thing to remember.

What was the first ARC or book you ever received from a publisher?

Magicians Muse by Linda Joy Singleton. I didn't get this from a publisher I got it from the author. She's a local author and friend and I adore this series so she sent me an ARC.

First publisher ARC? It was an eGalley Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton. I wasn't established enough to get a paper ARC of this one but back then I used Netaglley quite often.

My first paper ARC? That was The Girl of Fire And Thorns by Rae Carson and Fateful by Claudia Gray. Thanks Harper Teen for giving a fledgling blogger a chance! I will always remember that!

When you’re not reading or blogging, what can we find you doing?

Cooking, travelling, or doing yard work, or watching TV! I'm a huge fan of shows like Supernatural, Arrow, Heroes Reborn, Blindspot, DaVinci's Demons, The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead. I also love watching sports. 

Here’s where it gets hard everyone!!!

The Fives: (and yes, you can ONLY have 5! *muwhahahah*)

Yes I know Amber and I came up with these but they still suck lol

Five Favorite Books

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder

A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Five Favorite Book Boyfriends

Valek from Maria V. Snyder's Study & Glass series.

Hector from Rae Carson's Girl of Fire and Thorns series.

Ash from Julie Kagawa's Iron Fey series.

Adrian Ivashkov from Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy and Bloodlines series.

Shane McAllister from Jeri Smith-Ready's WVMP Radio series.

Five Favorite Book Quotes

I have way too many so I'm going to not do this one lol

Five Blogging Tips For New Bloggers

Blog your way. There is no right or wrong way to blog and those people who tell you there is are wrong.

Don't worry about getting all the ARC's! Even established blogs miss out on ARC's. And trust me there will come a time when you have so many books you won't know what to do with them all.

Read what you want when you want and read for fun! If you start scheduling things the fun goes away.

Don't participate in memes just to get followers. Participate because you want to meet new bloggers and actually comment on their posts. You will meet a lot of great people participating in memes as well as on social media so get out there and be social!

Have fun! This is the most important one in my opinion. If you're not having fun you're not doing it right. Blogging is for fun it's not a job.

Five Blogs You Want The World To Know About

These are easy since I love these ladies! The top 3 are some of my closest friends that I have known forever. The last 2 are newer bloggers that I've gotten to know over the past year and they are doing some awesome things!

Fiktshun

Magical Urban Fantasy Reads

Tales of A Ravenous Reader

A Perfection Called Books

Read Write Love 28

The Giveaway

I will be having a HUGE giveaway that will include a kindle paperwhite, ARC's, and swag on my actual blogaversary which is December 30th so make sure to stop back for that.

For this giveaway I'm giving away a stack of fall 2015 ARC's and a couple of early 2016 ARC's, US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fantastic Fives Schedule

November 8 Books Etc.

November 9 Fiktshun

November 10 Two Chicks On Books

November 11 Me, My Shelf and I
November 12 Bewitched Bookworms
November 13 Novel Novice

November 14 Book Angel Bookutopia- No post

November 15 Maer Wilson

November 16 Taking It One Book At A Time

November 17 YA Book Shelf

November 18 Musings of a YA Reader

November 19 Bookish Lifestyle

November 20 Once Upon A Twilight
November 21 Stories & Sweeties

November 22 Bookaholics Anonymous

Jaime's Review of Buried by Linda Joy Singleton

From Goodreads.
In a new school and determined to keep her secrets from being discovered, Thorn finds a mysterious locket that leads to a shocking discovery—the unmarked grave of a newborn baby. Surrounded by new friends she barely knows, as well as the school’s famous former student, a smoking-hot musician named Phillipe, Thorn must investigate to find out if one of them is a murderer.

Jaime’s review….

Confession I’ve had this book for a long time and have read it twice. I’ve been dying for it to get closer to release day so I could post my review!

Linda Joy Singleton is a favorite author of mine not only because she’s local but, because she writes great books! Most of them are set in Northern California so I am very familiar with the places! Her Seer series is one of my absolute favorites and is where we originally meet Thorn. I was so glad to hear that she was going to get her own story because I really felt that she needed one.

In Buried I will admit that I missed the Northern California locations as she set this one in Nevada and I also missed some of the characters from the Seer books. I get it though this was Thorn’s book so it had to be new. There were scenes where a couple of my faves showed up in a way that didn’t steal the scene from Thorn but it was still cool they were there. I also enjoy how Linda focused this book on Thorn and not Thorn and a boy. Don’t get me wrong there’s a boy but it’s not all about him which I found refreshing! I really loved this story Thorn’s psychometry  or “finding ability” is something I find fascinating I don’t know if  I could deal with it I mean she finds a baby’s grave ugh poor thing (yes both Thorn and the baby!) There’s a character whom is called the Grin Reaper who I adored he is awesome! This book was so much fun to read and I really can’t wait to read the next book in the series. Linda write faster!  ;) ;)

Buried comes out March 8^th so make sure to pre-order your copy at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the Book Depository and if you want to meet Thorn before that get the Seer books I highly recommend them!!!! Also make sure to check out Linda’s website for information about all of her books!

Make sure to add Buried to your Goodreads lists and also the Seer Series too!

Thanks to my friend Linda Joy Singleton and Flux books for an Advanced Readers Copy of this book!