The Running Bibliophile

Barcelona, Spain:  In the summer of 1945, an antiquarian book dealer takes his son, Daniel, to theCemetery of Forgotten Books, a library that houses books that are long forgotten. When you visit this library for the first time, you must choose a book and make sure that it lives on, that it is never forgotten. Daniel chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax. He becomes obsessed with the book and author, so much so, he spends his life trying to track down the author and find out what happened to him.
When I picked up the New York Times Bestseller, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, I was intrigued by the premise of the book and had to read it. However, I was a bit uneasy about reading a book that had been translated . . . would it translate well? Those worries were soon squashed as I became absorbed in the book. There really aren't any words that can aptly describe how much I enjoyed The Shadow of the Wind, and it stayed with me long after I closed the book. With …

Picking up immediately after Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)by Deborah Harkness, The Book of Life (All Souls Triology, #3) opens with Matthew de Clermont and Diana Bishop traveling back to the present time from 1591 to encounter new and old issues. Emily Mather, partner of Diana's aunt Sarah, has passed away. Diana is now a blood sworn daughter of Philippe, and the rift between Matthew and his brother grows even larger when Baldwin finds out that Matthew has blood rage. Benjamin, son of Matthew, also has blood rage and is playing a cat and mouse game with Diana and Matthew. In search of Ashmole 782, aka The Book of Life, and Benjamin, Diana and Matthew must take on their enemies in one final battle.
What can I say about The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness? This is my second time reading it and is absolutely fabulous and even better than I remember. There is so much that happens in this third and final installment of the All Souls Trilogy that the almost 600 pages fly by q…

When I received complimentary samples of TRESemmé Beauty-Full Volume Pre-Wash Conditioner and Beauty-Full Volume Shampoo from Influenster.com, I was super excited to try the products out. I waited until the weekend so I could take time with doing my hair to see how it really worked. The catch of using this particular shampoo and conditioner is that you have to "reverse your routine" by using the conditioner first and the shampoo last. To give the products a fair test, I even went out and bought full size bottles of the TRESemmé Beauty-Full Volume Pre-Wash Conditioner and Beauty-Full Volume Shampoo after I used the sample packages. There were some definite benefits and some definite downfalls for me.
One of the benefits of using the conditioner first was that it did make my hair feel very soft after I washed it out. It even seemed to help with my split ends. Since I don't wear product in my hair very often (gel, mousse, or hairspray), my hair tends to get extremely friz…

In December, I received my second VoxBox from Influenster.com. The product I received was the Dove Go Fresh Advanced Care Apple and White Tea Antiperspirant Deodorant Stick from Influenster.com for free for me to test and give my honest review of the product.
When I heard that the scent of the Dove Go Fresh Advanced Care Antiperspirant Deodorant Stick was Apple and White Tea, I thought that the scent would either be a phenomenal fragrance or smell like something an old lady would wear (or like bug spray). 
So, when I opened up the deodorant for the first time and sniffed it, I was pleasantly surprised. The apple scent is very pungent, so I hardly noticed the white tea scent. The only drawback is that it is a bit overpowering when you first put it on, so it might not be good for those who have allergies to fragrances. I'm not sure how I feel about smelling like apples when I sweat though. Although, it's definitely better to smell like apples than emit body odor. Something that…

Atlanta, GA - The local media is receiving letters from a serial killer on the loose, and whoever it is, is promising that they will kill again. The Atlanta Police Department is under pressure to find the killer before they strike again. Enter Keye Street, a former FBI profiler, who currently finds work in the form of capturing bail jumpers and other detective work. Determined to make a connection between the victims and the serial killer, the killer may be closer to her than she realizes.
The debut suspense novel, The Stranger You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams, is a must read book. I couldn't put it down once I picked it up, and it was one of those books that was so good, it made you want to call in sick. Unfortunately, I'm too responsible to actually call in sick to finish a book, so I had to settle for reading it on my lunch hour. Before I gush about the book, let me begin with telling you that I won The Stranger You Seek in a Goodreads.com First Read Giveaway back in 2011.
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Much to my surprise, I won a copy of Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz on a First Reads Giveaway on Goodreads.com in return for an honest review. It was one of the first books I ever won on the site. Super excited that I'd won this book, I picked up the first book in the series The Spellman Files off of my bookshelf so that I could read it before I got the book I won in the mail from the publisher. (Typically, I won't read a book in a series unless I have read all the ones that came before it.) It was kismet that I had found the first book in the series at Barnes & Noble in the bargin bin!
Curse of the Spellmans takes place in San Francisco, California and is about a family of private investigators. In this installment, Izzy Spellman has been arrested four times in three months and has to be bailed out of jail by Morty, her aging lawyer because her parents (and managers) refuse to do so. While Izzy is busy surveying her next door neighbor, her sister Rae is busy stalking…