Book Review + Giveaway! (U.S. only) The Serpent's Secret by Sayantani Dasgupta

* ORIGINALLY POSTED AT THE BENGALI NOMAD. **

Title: The Serpent's Secret

Author: Sayantani Dasgupta

Publication: February 27, 2018 by Scholastic Press

Purchase details: Received an Advanced Reader's Copy from Scholastic Press for Review

  Get your own copy!:                      

                               

Blurb: 

MEET KIRANMALA: INTERDIMENSIONAL DEMON SLAYER

(But she doesn’t know it yet.)

On the morning of her twelfth birthday, Kiranmala is just a regular sixth grader living in Parsippany, New Jersey… until her parents mysteriously vanish later that day and a rakkhosh demon slams through her kitchen, determined to eat her alive. Turns out there might be some truth to her parents’ fantastical stories—like how Kiranmala is a real Indian princess—and a wealth of secrets about her origin they've kept hidden.

To complicate matters, two crushworthy Indian princes ring her doorbell, insisting they’re here to rescue her. Suddenly, Kiran is swept into another dimension full of magic, winged horses, moving maps, and annoying, talking birds. There she must solve riddles and slay demons all while avoiding the Serpent King of the underworld (who may or may not want to kill her) and the rakkhosh queen (who definitely does) in order to find her parents and basically save New Jersey, her entire world, and everything beyond it… 

Book Birthday Celebration at The Bengali Nomad: Shadowsong by S. Jae Jones (READ AN EXCERPT!!)

* ORIGINALLY POSTED AT THE BENGALI NOMAD. **

HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY SHADOWSONG AND S.JAE JONES!!!


    

Synopsis: Six months after the end of Wintersong, Liesl is working toward furthering both her brother’s and her own musical careers. Although she is determined to look forward and not behind, life in the world above is not as easy as Liesl had hoped. Her younger brother Josef is cold, distant, and withdrawn, while Liesl can’t forget the austere young man she left beneath the earth, and the music he inspired in her. 

When troubling signs arise that the barrier between worlds is crumbling, Liesl must return to the Underground to unravel the mystery of life, death, and the Goblin King—who he was, who he is, and who he will be. What will it take to break the old laws once and for all? What is the true meaning of sacrifice when the fate of the world—or the ones Liesl loves—is in her hands?   


                                     

About S. Jae Jones (taken from Goodreads): S. Jae-Jones, called JJ, is an artist, an adrenaline junkie, and the NYT bestselling author of Wintersong.
 
Born and raised in sunny Los Angeles, she lived in New York City for ten years before relocating down to Dixie, where she is comfortably growing fat on grits and barbecue. When not writing, she can be found rock-climbing, skydiving, taking photographs, drawing pictures, and dragging her dog on ridiculously long hikes.

Book Review: To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

* ORIGINALLY POSTED AT THE BENGALI NOMAD. **

Title: To Kill a Kingdom

Author: Alexandra Christo

Publication (of my edition): March 6th, 2018 by Feiwel and Friends

Purchase details: Received an Advanced Reading Copy from Macmillan U.S.

Blurb:  Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most—a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian’s heart to the Sea Queen or remain a human forever.

The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavory hobby—it’s his calling. When he rescues a drowning woman in the ocean, she’s more than what she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good—But can he trust her? And just how many deals will Elian have to barter to eliminate mankind’s greatest enemy?

Snippets of the Past #1

* ORIGINALLY POSTED AT THE BENGALI NOMAD. **

Snippets of the Past is a weekly feature which is meant to highlight a book you've read a while back. A lot of the books that I will be highlighting for this feature are books I've reviewed in my old blog but that does not necessarily have to be the case. People are more than welcome to join in! Simple use the photo above on your post and be sure to explain to your readers what it is! Once you're done posting, come back and link up your post on the linky widget on this blog post. Also, be sure to include the link to my blog on your post so that other bloggers can also come back here and link up, should they choose to participate.   

Weekly Recap @ Daydreaming Bookworm

               

Since this weekly blog post will be linking up to both Sunday Post and Stacking the Shelves, I've decided to label it as Weekly Recap, just to keep things simple.  

It's Monday! What are YOU Reading?

** Originally posted at The Bengali Nomad**

It's Monday! What are YOU Reading? is a meme hosted by Kathryn at the Book Date. In my opinion, the meme is a great way to share what you have been, are, and about to be reading over the week. In other words, basically yet another way for book nerds to gush over read/unread books. 

Weekly Recap @ Daydreaming Bookworm

** Originally posted at The Bengali Nomad**

               

Since this weekly blog post will be linking up to both Sunday Post and Stacking the Shelves, I've decided to label it as Weekly Recap, just to keep things simple.                                                            

Comeback Into The Blogging World For Good... And Giveaway!!!!

If you've read my last blog post, then you'll know that I've been attending a boarding school in the United States for the past two years. During that time I've been taking a blogging break (I know, two years is a long time for a break) but I want to start blogging again, because I used to love it so much. Also, I am graduating high school in less than 13 days!!! How crazy is that? Which is why I think that now, since I have senioritis anyway, would be the best time to reboot into the network of book bloggers. And what better way to celebrate my official return (hopefully) into the book blogging world than having a giveaway? I figured that since I'm going to have to move out of my school dorm anyway, I might as well give away my books to people who will appreciate them (A.K.A bookworms!). But before that, I'd like to update you guys a little bit on what I've been up to (again, I know I did that last year too but failed to follow through it), and then you'll find the giveaway at the bottom of my post. Enjoy! 

Top 2 Highlights Of My Senior Year: (In No Particular Order)

1) THE EUROPE TRIP:

YES. So I went on the school sponsored trip to Eastern Europe over spring break, and honestly it was one of the best trips I've ever had! Our group merged with three other school groups and we did all the travelling within Europe together. A junior from my school and I were randomly assigned as bunkmates with these two girls from Vermont, and it was like instant connection! The four of us then ended up bunking together as a quad throughout the entire trip. It's funny how you can become so close to people over the course of a week. We still communicate every once in a while, and it would be really awesome if sometime in the future we all had the opportunity to go on another trip together. Our tour group visited four cities: Berlin, Prague, Krakow and Budapest , and other than flying into Berlin and flying out from Budapest, we did most of our travelling on a tour bus. The only part of the trip that I didn't like was visiting the Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz (Poland), but then again I still believe that it was an important experience because the visit was meant to be a reminder of one of the many things that went wrong in history. And hopefully these past incidents will make us consider our actions in the future and keep us from repeating the mistakes of the past. (Maybe Trump should visit Auschwitz **cough** ,**cough**). Well moving on, below are photographed memories of some "happy" experiences.( I say "some" because there are so many )





2) DUNMUN 2015 (DHAKA MODEL UNITED NATIONS 2015)

Now I started Model UN after I joined the Model UN club at my school here in the United States. So as you can imagine, my first MUN conference was in the U.S , at UConn actually.  But the reason why I chose DUNMUN as a top highlight of the year is not only because it was my first MUN conference in Bangladesh, but also because I met a lot of cool Bangladeshi people WITHIN my generation there (and some old classmates as well!) . For me this is particularly important because while I was having an awesome time in the U.S, I kind of grew apart from people my age back in Dhaka. And it was the DUNMUN conference in particular that helped me reconnect with them. I still don't have any solid future plans: I do know that I am going to start out college at Fordham University, but I might want to transfer midway because I am the kind of person who likes travelling to new places and since I've already lived in the U.S. for two years, I think I might give college in Europe or East Asia a shot. But who knows? Only time will tell.

(YES, I am the awkward kid in the red suit)


I also had a successful season in both debate and MUN (lots of trophies and certificates) so super proud of that. I got into fitness in the beginning of the year and dropped a lot of pounds but gained it all back when AP season came around.(What else is new) But that's all I can think of . Without further ado, I present to you, the giveaway!!

What's up for grabs:

BOOKS: (NOTE: SOME OF THEM ARE ARCS (ADVANCED READING COPIES))

 

Hungarian Paprika from my Europe Trip:

And of course, postcards from each destination I visited on my trip to Europe. (Berlin, Prague, Krakow and Budapest). Giveaway is open internationally and will have four winners. Good luck! :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway