June in Review, and a fashion post

1/2 way through July already *sigh*

I feel so behind on everything!

WRITING: I wrote nothing new in june, but did a lot of work on releasing The Half-blood (along with Kelli, my editor and Betsy, my artist). In case you missed it, you can get a signed copy from my website, from amazon , or a kindle version, and of course a nook version.

Also, The Human made it to bestseller status on Kindle! At the beginning of June, it made it to #3 on YA Fantasy (topped only by The Hunger Games & Catching fire), #8 on Fantasy overall (topped only by Game of Thrones & Sookie Stackhouse), & I cracked the top 100 in kindle books overall.

Hobbies:

-Running- June was a rough month for training, though I did run at a least once or twice a week all month. Also, I had my annual physical fitness test & I did pretty good. 289 out of 300 possible points. I was also the first one in the run, which was kind of weird. Felt like winning a race – kind of a neat feeling!

-Books read:

Knight Moves – Another fun book by John G. Hartness! Fast paced, great story, and FINALLY some payoff between two if the lead characters, 🙂

I only hate that I have to wait until next year for the next one!

Bitterblue – I really really enjoyed this book. Fire is still my favorite of the series, but this was a fantastic follow up. It works well as a stand alone novel, but also has a lot of payoff for those of us who read the other two books. One word of caution, there are some very adult themes in this book (rape, child abuse, suicide, self-harm, etc), so those could definitely be a trigger for some people.

Black Powder War – third book in the Temeraire series, LOVED IT! I swear this series is soooooo good! I’m trying to make it last long, to savor it. The Napoleonic wars + DRAGONS! SO AWESOME.

Thief of Hope – Fast paced, and hooks you in right from the get go! I loved the world created here and her fantastic characters. I can’t wait to read what happens next!

Health: I’m healthy, the youngling is healthy. Ron is finally out of his cast & running again. But he’s taking it much more gently now.

Travel: Charlotte for ConCarolinas where I was the fan Guest of Honor. Anaheim & San Diego, California (wedding, Disneyland, and time with friends & family, yay!), then Las vegas (another wedding).

Local Events: We watched the Brasil/USA expo game, and it was AWESOME! Brasil won of course.

Personal: I turned 33. Wooooooooo! Lots of celebrating & fun. 🙂

Upcoming…
-Signing at midtown scholors (Jul 18th)
-Dragon*Con (Sep)
-Ragnar Relay (Sep)
-Capclave (Oct)
-GMX (Oct)

Also, dear readers, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love to see your reviews on goodreads, amazon, and well, pretty much anywhere you can think to post them! Thanks!

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Now, how about a Thrifty fashion post? I know it’s been ages since my last one, and for that I apologize.

You might be asking yourself (because I know I’m certainly asking myself), why the heck is this author/Marine/mother/wife writing a fashion blog? Aren’t there like a bajillion fashion blogs out there? Why do we need another?

We probably don’t, and I don’t think I’m a fashionista at all, but apparently some of my friends and family do, and they asked me to do one, soooo… I figured this would be kind of fun to do. So there.

You can see my first post HERE, where I go into the basics of my style & kind of what my shopping “motto” is (never pay full price for anything), and that patience is a virtue (wait 3 years to find a specific pair of $250 Fluevog shoes for $40? Why yes I did…)

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Vintage and Fluevogs!
Special Agenda? Nope.

Vintage yellow wool coat, $30 (eBay)
Vintage cotton shirt dress, $30 (vintage shop in Atlanta)
Vintage gloves, $5 (eBay)
Scarf, $8 (Target)
Penny Blossom, $7.50 (etsy)
Watch, TARDIS earrings, & Bracelet, gifts
Fluevogs operetta variadots, $249 (full price, in store)
Total: $329.50. At full price would have been: approx $566.50.

Notes: Well aside from my obvious NON THRIFTINESS on my shoes (this was one of those times where I was in love and caved and paid full price – very rare!), on the whole this entire outfit was a series of really good vintage finds. Plus I always love yellow, and brown is another color I’m starting to enjoy too. As always, I love my penny blossoms, and the paper bracelet my daughter made me is priceless! As for the TARDIS earrings, well, any chance to sneak geekiness into my outfit is a win for me!

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Lastly, need a copy of my books? As it happens you can buy them here.