Freda's Voice

Welcome to the May edition of monthly news! Went to Stars On Ice for the third time, and lemme tell ya, it never gets old!  If you haven't been, I urge you to go next year! Completed my first reading challenge too, Women Authors. ArmchairBEA has just finished. Did you participate or go to BEA?  BOOKS: Going Against The Grain - Nuccia Ardagna (recommend) Kidnap: Part One of Guy Erma & The Son Of Empire - Sally Ann Melia Ringo With A Little Help - Michael Starr (recommend) Watch The Shadows - Robin Winter Stuck In Downward Dog - Chantel Guertin (HIGHLY recommend) Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy - Cassandra Clare & Sarah Rees Brennan (recommend) Aoléon The Martian Girl Part 1 - Brent LeVasseur (recommend) MOVIES: Kingsman: The Secret Service (recommend) McFarland USA (recommend) Yearly Total:     42 Books, 6 Products & 10 Movies Book of the Month: Book of the Year: BLOGGER /MONE

ArmchairBEA Yesterday was about characters and blogging basics. I didn't really have much to put in other than a late Instagram post. #CharacterQuotes #ArmchairBEA Favorite book of all time. ♥ A photo posted by Freda Mans (@fredasphotos) on May 29, 2015 at 7:39pm PDT This book was a life changer for me. Why? The characters. If you haven't read this or any Steinbeck novels, do so. Sooner, rather than later too. Anywho... today is about books that become movies, or even tv shows. For me, I have told the world I want too see The Lunar Chronicles made into something visual and on-screen. It would seriously be the one thing I would pay money to go see.  Because of my love of this series by Marissa Meyer , I have decided to offer up the first book that starts it all, Cinder, for giveaway. HERE'S THE CATCH; US readers vie for an ecopy. CDN readers vie for print. Both delivered straight from Amazon. YAY! Sorry to my international rea

Welcome to Week 228! We have a new way to participate! See below! Rules: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your  eReader (If you have to improvise, that's ok.)  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) *Post it. *Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url.  *It's that simple. Or join The Friday 56 on  Instagram ! Rules: * Grab a book and find a creative way to showcase your 56. It can be a photo of the book and the 56 in comments, or whatever you come up with. Make sure to use the hashtag  #Friday56 *Add your Instagram url to the Linky. AMAZON US   |   AMAZON CA I clamped down on the curse building in my chest. She might be a servant, but she could easily kill me, too. READ A SAMPLER FREE FOR KINDLE I clamped down on the curse building in my chest. She might be a servant, but she could easily kill me, too. This week's #Friday56 is from A Court Of Thorns And Roses by Sarah

ArmchairBEA Shattered. Losing faith. The evidence of life. A billion reasons why. The collector of dying breaths. Always Watching. Before I fall. #SpinePoetry #ArmchairBEA A photo posted by Freda Mans (@fredasphotos) on May 28, 2015 at 10:54am PDT I'm all about the visual aspect of anything in life. You look at food and get hungry before you actually sit down to eat. You see a cover of a book before you read it. That cover should entice you. Make you want to look to the back for a synopsis or even flip through the pages. Visual Expressions are an everyday thing. Today, thanks to a great interview at ArmchairBEA's headquarters, I learned about webcomics. I didn't really know they were a thing. Sad, but true. I read comics, am a huge fan actually, like, Archie & the Gang, Garfield... OMG he is hilarious, and I love the strip in Saturday's paper, Pickles. That old guy is jokes. Pickles is probably my favorite comic on the planet. The dynamic between h

Crop circles magically appear in Farmer Johnson’s field. A mysterious light sweeps over the night sky and awakens Farmer Johnson and Gilbert, the boy next door.  Curious, Gilbert ventures out to discover the source of the light and stumbles into a beautiful Martian girl sitting in a crop circle. Farmer Johnson also investigates the strange light, and thinking that Gilbert and Aoléon are vandals, he chases them. But they sprint to Aoléon’s saucer and escape only to be pursued by the U.S. Air Force.  Gilbert has never been attacked by swarms of giant killer robots. Never met strange aliens from other worlds. Never skyboarded across a megalopolis hidden deep inside an extinct volcano. Never trekked across a vast Martian desert. And never been eaten alive by a gigantic slor (well, almost never, unless you count Billy the fat bully at school).  And luckily, he has never ever confronted an evil ruler of Mars bent on conquering the Earth to steal its cows.  Never...until now!  This may be

ArmchairBEA I'm back for my third  fourth year in a row for ArmchairBEA! I love it! It's a great way to stay involved in all the what's what of BEA, without the travel, though BEA is on my bucketlist. So let's get into who I am, for anyone who hasn't been here before. I'm Freda, and this site is my voice. I am Canadian, coming from Ontario. I created this site in August of 2009! Yup, long time ago... and it has come pretty far since then. Technically, I am a lifestyle blogger who is a bookworm. Initially, I was just a bookie, but my site merged into more. Books are always going to be my #1 love though, and what I post most about. I couldn't imagine life without them. I love books, obvi, and I even write my own poetry. Yeah, yeah, I'm sensitive that way. I also love fashion, beauty, (they kinda go hand-in-hand), movies, music, photography, (which I also have my blog; Day One Photography ... just a hobby photographer - no biggie), animals -

Simon Lewis never thought he’d become a Shadowhunter…and now he has the chance. One of ten adventures in Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy. After living as a Mundane and a Vampire, Simon never thought he would become a Shadowhunter, but today he begins his training at Shadowhunter Academy. This standalone e-only short story follows the adventures of Simon Lewis, star of the #1  New York Times  bestselling series The Mortal Instruments, as he trains to become a Shadowhunter. Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy features characters from Cassandra Clare ’s Mortal Instruments, Infernal Devices, and the upcoming Dark Artifices and Last Hours series.  Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy is written by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan . Kindle:  3248 KB Print Length:  72 pages Publisher:  Margaret K. McElderry Books (February 17, 2015) ASIN:  B00OE2X65G AMAZON US   |   AMAZON CA  |   AMAZON UK About the Author Cassandra Clare is the author of the #1  New York Times ,

AMAZON US   |   AMAZON CA “B-but—, i-it is impossible…,” Aoléon stammered, still shaking.  “Aoléon, listen! Nothing is impossible. You proved that to me.” **No compensation was received for posting. Compensation will be earned if purchases are made from the links within. This post is part of a weekly meme.

A struggling coach and teacher who has been had to move around for different incidents in his career finally comes to one of the poorest cities in America- McFarland, California . There he discovers buried potential among several high school boys and slowly turns them into championship runners and brings them closer than even he could ever imagine. AVAILABLE JUNE 2! PRE-ORDER TODAY!! Rated PG 129 minutes AMAZON US   |   AMAZON CA  REVIEW: Fantastic! I love movies that are based on real events. They are usually most inspirational and often the most interesting to watch. This movie fit everything I expected and more. The triumph the boys experienced as they succeeded and gained self confidence was beautiful to watch.  You do need tissues on hand for a couple of moments, but for the most part, the film is upbeat. This is a movie to watch with the family, provided your kids are not too small. The family could enjoy this movie together, as it's a

Mara Brennan is about to unravel. Three days after her 28th birthday, her boyfriend dumps her, leaving her with nothing but a basement apartment, a futon and a pile of unpaid bills. Mara realizes it’s time for an identity makeover. Navigating the dueling worlds of yoga and cosmetic surgery, gourmet dinners and Frankenberry cereal, etiquette handbooks and too-helpful loved ones, Stuck in Downward Dog is Chantel Guertin’s unforgettable comic debut about how to get unstuck when you’re caught in a rut. Paperback:  274 pages Publisher:  ECW Press (September 1, 2013) ISBN:  9781770411609 AMAZON US   |   AMAZON CA   |   AMAZON UK About the Author Chantel Guertin is author of  Love Struck ,   a beauty expert on the  Marilyn Denis Show , and the editor-at-large of the  Kit . Her   writing has appeared in publications including  Best Health , Canadian Family ,  Elle  Canada,  Fashion ,  Maclean’s , the  National Post ,  Reader’s   Digest ,  Tribute , and  TV Guide , and on

Welcome to Week 227! We have a new way to participate! See below! Rules: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your  eReader (If you have to improvise, that's ok.)  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) *Post it. *Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url.  *It's that simple. Or join The Friday 56 on  Instagram ! Rules: * Grab a book and find a creative way to showcase your 56. It can be a photo of the book and the 56 in comments, or whatever you come up with. Make sure to use the hashtag  #Friday56 *Add your Instagram url to the Linky. AMAZON US   |   AMAZON CA She exhaled. "I want you to kiss me. On the mouth. Like you kissed your ex-wife." She exhaled. "I want you to kiss me. On the mouth. Like you kissed your ex-wife." Today's #Friday56 from The Refugee Sentinel by Harrison Hayes. A photo posted by Freda Mans (@fredasphotos) on May 21, 2015 at