I can’t quite believe how fast the past two months have flown by! I had planned to write up a review after every book I finished, but again I haven’t found the time to do that. I’m doing okayish with my book resolutions/challenges. I’ve managed not to buy a single book yet this year, although I’ve been sorely tempted by a few. I’ve been struggling more with my 52 books in 52 weeks though; I’m only on 6 books, while by now I should have finished 8 already. Hopefully I’ll catch up, but it’s trickier that I thought!

Be Still My Vampire Heart by Kerrelyn Sparks

This is the third book in Kerrelyn Spark’s Love at Stake series and again it’s a lot of fun. I’ve only just discovered her books and with thirteen books in the series I’ve got some serious catching up to do! So far it reminds me a lot of Lynsay Sands’ books: they’re funny, entertaining reads with a cool vampire world that doesn’t take itself too seriously. This one is about the general of the vampire army falling in love with a vampire slayer.

Lord of The Changing Winds by Rachel Neumeier

I struggled a lot with this book and it was almost a DNF (did not finish) for me. I already had bought the following two books though, so I thought I should at least give it a shot. The concept sounds interesting: a teenage girl, Kes, finds out she has the ability to heal griffins. I really wanted to like this book, but nothing about it stood out to me. The characters aren’t that likable, the story is pretty predictable and the world didn’t feel fleshed out.

The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks

I’m in two minds about this series. The first book starts off with a pretty harsh world, which only gets worse as the story progresses. Rape, incest, cannibalism… those aren’t really the things I look for in a book. Plus there was a certain lack of storytelling and world and character building; I constantly felt as if there was more to these characters and their backstories, but I just wasn’t seeing it. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled lately by books like The Name of The Wind, but I was missing the beauty in the way a story can be told.

And yet, despite all those things the story itself was pretty compelling; I managed to finish book one and two in 3 days, picking it up whenever I could find the time. It actually managed to surprise me; the first book alone has at least 4 twists towards the end (one of which I saw coming, the others were proper “OMG!” moments). It’s not the most brilliant series out there, but it’s definitely a good read. Interested? Why not enter my giveaway for the first book in the series?

My Lady Mage by Alexis Morgan

This is the first book in Alexis Morgan’s new Warriors of the Mist series. It’s a fantasy romance: it’s got your typical romance tropes, but it’s set in an interesting fantasy world. The “warriors” from the series title were damned by the gods to fight evil; they lie dormant under the mists of the river until they are called upon by those in need. In this book they are awakened by Merewen to save her people from her uncle’s cruelty. And obviously she falls in love with one of the damned warriors. The book manages to properly balance the fantasy and romance elements, turning it into a fun read. Each warrior is linked to an animal avatar and it’s fun discovering their backstories. I’m very curious to see how this story continues!

Time to announce the winners of the latest two MissGeeky Giveaways! You guys left some great comments on both posts with your favourite scifi movie and the create your own movie challenge. So who won?

The first giveaway winner was drawn randomly and will receive two Babylon 5 DVDs: The Gathering and The Lost Tales.

Drumroll, please! The winner is:

Jane!

With the comment:

I once wrote to Patrick Stewart to ask him to do a book signing at the retail shop I used to run. He refused as he didn’t have the time but was so lovely about it. How could anyone not adore him?

With the second giveaway I was giving away two copies of Skyfall, one of which was for the “best”/most creative/fun answer and one of which was drawn randomly.

Drumroll, please! The first winner is:

Steve!

With his comment:

Easy. It would be about a chainsaw wielding gang of giraffes called ‘The Long Horses’ who run riot around London bumping into people without apologising, standing on the left of the escalators, asking for Big Macs in Burger King and so on. Turns out they are simply misunderstood and are protesting the lack of tall, edible trees in the city and they just want equality for all giraffes.

I’d have Tom Selleck play the lead giraffe.

And the second winner is:

Jo!

With her comment:

I’m no good at thinking up movie ideas – something kick ass and inspiring, something you could watch to cheer you up, or motivate you. Maybe something with FemShep 🙂

Congrats to all the winners and enjoy your prizes! For those of you that didn’t win, why not try out my latest giveaway for The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks?

I had a lot of fun staying up and watching the Oscars on Sunday. I really enjoyed the show, even though I didn’t really like Seth MacFarlane as the host. He had some great moments (I loved the dances in his opening), but some of the jokes just weren’t funny.

I actually managed to watch all the movies from the main six categories (so Best Picture, Best Directing and the 4 Best acting categories) before the ceremony and came quite far with all the others. I tend to struggle with “Oscar” movies: some movies are just too depressing and serious, while I just want to relax and be entertained. I do end up watching things though that I most probably wouldn’t have given a chance and end up loving, which is the main reason I do this every year.

Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook is that type of movie that I think I normally wouldn’t have watched or if I had attempted it, I think I would have switched off twenty minutes in. It’s about Pat (Bradley Cooper), who after a stint in a mental institution moves back into his parents place to try to get his life back on track while dealing with bipolar disorder. In that first half an hour his character is just so unlikable and unrootable for; you just have to cringe at some of the things he does. Once Jennifer Lawrence’s character is introduced though (a recent widow with mental health problems of her own), it becomes a really sweet and interesting movie.

Beasts of The Southern Wild

Okay, I did not like this movie. I get what it was going for and I can see what people liked about it, but for me it just didn’t resonate at all. Beasts of The Southern Wild is about six-year-old Hushpuppy, who lives with her father in the Bathtub, a flood threatened bayou community. I think what I didn’t like about this movie is that to me it felt like it was glorifying poverty, turning the avoidance of using common sense into something magical and wise. Quvenzhané Wallis does give a stunning performance as Hushpuppy, but I never felt I cared for her or her father through the entire movie.

Amour

I loved Amour. It’s a sweet, but also brutal and harrowing tale about the final stages in a couple’s life. Georges and Anne are retired music teachers in their eighties, when Anne suffers a stroke paralysing half of her body. Both Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant give great performances as Georges and Anne, and you really feel for the suffering both of them go through.

Birthdays are awesome! I celebrated mine yesterday and it was just so much fun catching up with friends and family. I thought I’d share the fun with you all and hold another giveaway here! I know I still haven’t announced the winners of the previous giveaway, but don’t worry I’ll be contacting them today.

So what’s the giveaway for? One lucky reader will receive a copy of The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks. I just read the entire series and it’s great.

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment behind with your favourite birthday memory. You’ll also get a second entry if you’re following me on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway with the hashtag #missgeeky. The competition is open to everyone and it will end on March 3rd after which I’ll randomly draw a winner.

As regular readers will know, I’ve been trying my best to watch all the Oscar nominated movies this year. I’m going to fail massively on the Documentary, Foreign and Short categories, but I think I might actually manage watching everything else (which would be a first for me!). Reviewing all of those movies though… I’m not sure how far I’m going to get with those.

I’m going to at least try to review all the Best Picture nominations. I already blogged about Les Miserables, Life of Pi and Argo (read that blog post here), so only six more to go! I’ll do three today, and hopefully the remaining three tomorrow or Sunday.

Django Unchained

Here’s a confession: I still haven’t seen Reservoir Dogs or Jackie Brown and I didn’t really like Pulp Fiction. But I loved Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds, and now also loved Django Unchained. Tarantino’s past three movies have been all over-the-top, odes-to-certain-genres, unique movie experiences, and I can’t help but admire his style.

In Django Unchained, Tarantino manages to blend the elements of a spaghetti western with 70s blaxploitation. And bizarrely that works. Jamie Foxx is excellent as the titular character Django, who turns from slave to bounty hunter. But it’s Christoph Waltz that again shines; there’s just something about the combination of him and Tarantino’s dialogue that makes it all awesome.

I know some people don’t like Tarantino’s movies, cause of the bloodiness and gore, but actually? I think it’s so over-the-top to the point of unrealism that it’s not gory. Blood exploding in a fountain after one shot? It makes me ponder the tech they used to get that effect and once I start thinking of all the gore in terms of special effects it all becomes laughable. Am I the only one that does that?

Lincoln

The West Wing meets American History 101. That’s the way I heard Lincoln described to me. And they weren’t wrong. I have to admit I think I normally would have struggled a bit with the background politics and history, but having just played Assassin’s Creed 3 I actually had recently read up on that bit of history (I know we covered it in high school, but it’s been a while).

Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance as Lincoln is awesome. It’s impressive how he breathes life into this character, without it turning into a caricature which I think in the hands of a lesser actor would have very easily happened. He fully deserves the Oscar this year, so I’ll be rooting for him on Sunday (although I don’t think my rooting is needed, he seems to be winning every award this year!).

Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty was one of the nominated movies I was least looking forward to. The topic just didn’t seem like something I’d be interested in and I wasn’t a huge fan of Kathryn Bigelow’s previous movie The Hurt Locker either. I have to admit though I was wrong and was pleasantly surprised by Zero Dark Thirty. Although “pleasantly” might be the wrong word. Zero Dark Thirty is a great movie, but it’s one I wouldn’t say is “enjoyable” or “fun”; it gives a stark, harsh, visceral look at the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks.

Even though you know how it’s going to end (well, I’m assuming most people would know how it ends) it still is exciting to see the entire story unfold. The first half of the film features a brutal and unsettling depiction of torture, making you aware of the disturbing lengths people went to to obtain the truth. Jessica Chastain gives a powerful performance as the CIA operative who is relentless in her search for bin Laden and in her belief of this one flimsy lead. Bigelow has managed to create a movie that is intense and exhilarating to watch, keeping you at the edge of your seat the entire time.

I love living in London. There’s always something cool going on or something interesting to do, no matter what you’re interested in. I realized that obviously it’s the perfect setting for a book series and started wondering what series out there are based in London?

I’m sure there are plenty more, but I came across this awesome sounding one God Save The Queen. Queen Victoria as a vampire? Current day steampunk? Werewolves, vampires and goblins? Comparisons to Seanan McGuire’s Toby Daye series? I need to get my hands on this book!

Here’s the description from Amazon:

The Year is 2012 – and Queen Victoria still rules with an immortal fist.

She’s the undead matriarch of a Britain where the Aristocracy is made up of werewolves and vampires, where goblins live underground and mothers know better than to let their children out after dark. A world where technology lives side by side with magic, where being nobility means being infected with the Plague (side-effects include undeath) and Hysteria is the popular affliction of the day.

Xandra Vardan is a member of the elite Royal Guard, and it’s her duty to protect the Aristocracy. But things get complicated when her sister goes missing. Xandra will not only realise she’s the prize in a dangerous power struggle – but she’ll also uncover a conspiracy that threatens to topple the empire itself.

God Save The Queen by Kate Locke is the first book in the Immortal Empire Series. It’s available on Amazon.co.uk for £5.59 and on Amazon.com for $11.55.

It’s less than a week to the Oscars and like every year I’m quite excited for it. I’ve been doing my best to watch most of the nominated movies; I’ve managed to come quite far, missing only a couple of the movies with multiple nominations.

I love some of the designs Olly Moss has created in the past, and this year he’s worked with The Academy and Gallery 1988 to create the official “85 Years of Oscars” poster for the 85th Academy Awards. It features the golden statue as the Best Picture winner of each year.

It’s awesome. I recommend having a look at the large version to see all the details.

How many Best Picture winners can you recognize?

I’m still addicted to Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer. It’s been almost a year since it came out and I’m still playing it weekly! They just keep adding new characters and levels, and it remains fun and interesting to play. I also want to replay the main story line, but this time with a different backstory and make different choices. The first time around I played as a paragon, but renegade is most of the time way more fun!

So obviously I love these pendants from etsy store Land of Rapture. Which one would you choose? Paragon, renegade or in between?

I’d have to go with the Paragon one. As much as I’d like to go with the Renegade one, I’m more of a stick-to-the-rules type of gal.

I love trying out iPhone cases! There are just so many different styles out there and it’s great seeing how each one works for different situations. The iPhone wristlet from Capulet is the type of case that replaces your purse/wallet, with space for cards, money and keys.

The Capulet iPhone 5 wristlet has a silky Italian leather casing and a soft suede lining. It comes in a wide range of colours/patterns: copper, gold, green, tan, sunset red, seashell white, powder blue, cobalt, jet black, snakeskin and python print. Depending on the colour it can range from £169 to £249. It’s a gorgeous and luxurious case; it feels so soft and smooth!

Inside there’s space on the left to fit your iPhone comfortably. It’s designed to fit an iPhone 5, but I think it should work for previous iPhones as well. On the right there’s slots for four cards with a pocket behind it for money and other flat stuff you might want to carry. Finally, on the back of the wristlet is a small coin pocket.

I love the look of this case, but it’s just not what I look for in an iPhone case. I almost brought it with me to the BAFTAs, but I also wanted to bring along extra batteries and lipstick. I can imagine it being perfect though for a night out where you only want to bring one small case/bag/clutch with you. It fits all your basic essentials: phone, keys, money.

Disclaimer: The Capulet iPhone Wristlet was provided to me on loan from Capulet. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Once in a blue moon an opportunity comes along that sounds so amazing and wonderful, you can’t quite believe it. I’ve been blogging now for 6 years and I’ve been fortunate enough to be invited to various cool events. The BAFTAs though? Wow, that was something I never dreamed I’d be invited to. It’s a night I’ll never forget and I don’t think anything can top that any time soon.

About a week before the big night I got an email from Evian’s PR team asking whether I’d want an unforgettable red carpet experience at this year’s BAFTAs. I initially interpreted that as standing in the press pit at the BAFTAs which I had never done before and thought would be pretty awesome to do. After responding though I soon realized that this was a bit more than that: I’d get to walk the red carpet and attend the ceremony, dinner and after party. Wait, what? Seriously? Me? YES!

I can’t properly describe all the emotions I felt leading up to the BAFTAs. Shock. Disbelief. Happiness. Nervousness. Excitement. Panic. Part of me was freaking out about what to wear. None of the dresses I owned were any good, and I had no idea what to do with hair and makeup. And what was I supposed to with coat, bag and shoes? I wasn’t prepared for a black tie event; I’ve never been to one before, what’s the protocol? Another part of me was wondering whether this was all real. Or was this a joke, a prank, a very weird PR stunt? I kept imagining all the worst-case scenarios. It’s in my nature to stress, so stress I did.

Of course in the end it all turned out okay. I managed to find an awesome dress (see my post here). I talked to a wonderful makeup artist at the Lancome stand at Debenhams who gave some awesome tips. And I managed to find a nice clutch that fit most of the stuff I took with me. I’ll do another blog post with the makeup I wore, but the one thing I need to point out here is the nail polish: it’s Skyfall from O.P.I. Awesome colour and super appropriate for that night.

I was all set for the BAFTAs. And I looked awesome.

On Sunday afternoon I made my way to Covent Garden, all nervous and excited. The main thing that had me worried was that I hadn’t actually gotten the ticket. The idea was to meetup with the PR in a pub an hour before the ceremony started. I didn’t quite want to believe I was actually going until I had the actual physical ticket in my hands.

It didn’t help that my careful and anxious planning meant I arrived a full half an hour too early. Cue me with my floor length evening dress sitting in a pub filled with tourists and Irish rugby fans. That half an hour was the third longest wait of my life (first: waiting for the result of my thesis presentation and defence, second: waiting at the ER to hear about my Dad).

I shouldn’t have worried. Eventually I was joined by Deola, the PR from We Are Social/Evian, and two other lovely bloggers, Alex from Alex Loves and Emily from Fashion Foie Gras. And I got my ticket!

The Red Carpet

Once the group was complete, it was time to head over to the Royal Opera House. It was pouring with rain outside and I was struggling terribly trying to balance all the stuff I was holding. Umbrella in one hand, clutch under my armpit, while desperately trying to hold my dress up from all the puddles and rain. Soon we were at the ticket gate, adding yet another object to the equation: umbrella, clutch, dress, ticket. I’m not the most coordinated or graceful person, and juggling those four things was a dance of deftness I hadn’t yet mastered.

Before I knew it I was on the red carpet, still striving to not make a fool of myself by stumbling and falling. It was surreal. On the left were crowds of fans screaming for their favourite stars, on my right the press pit and the celebrities being interviewed. It was a whirlwind of umbrella dodging, object juggling and celebrity spotting (I was in arms reach of George Clooney, Ben Affleck and Bradley Cooper), all while being pressured to make our way down the red carpet. I wish I had time to relax, take some photos and properly appreciate where I was, but all too soon it was over. My glamorous red carpet experience was completed.

There was no time to mourn the end of my red carpet affair; it was time to adore the awesomeness that is the Royal Opera House. I’ve only been to their meeting rooms before, so this was the first time I was actually in the auditorium. It’s gorgeous. My seat was in the highest part, the amphitheatre gallery, but I didn’t care. I was at the BAFTAs. Down below, all scurrying in the stalls, were the stars I had been admiring the past weeks, each anxiously waiting to hear if they had won. And I was there with them.

The Ceremony

The lights dimmed, the curtains were drawn and the stage lit up. The ceremony was about to start. I won’t go into any lengthy details about the ceremony here; by now I’m assuming you all have seen it and know who has won what, who said what and who wore who. I loved every bit of it. Stephen Fry was great as a host and he never failed to get the audience laughing (my favourite: “Life of Pee by Ang Lie”, it doesn’t work as well though written down).

I tried live tweeting the entire thing, but it’s tricky! It also still sucks that it isn’t broadcast live; in this day and age they should be able to. Maybe not on BBC One, but why not stream it completely online at least or on BBC Three? Part of me was hesitant about tweeting everything and I didn’t want to spoil it for people and yet… I was there, how could I not tweet about it?

I still need to rewatch the actual broadcast ceremony. I’m quite curious to see how it’s different from what I saw and which bits they edited and cut. There were only a couple of things that really stood out to me as things you don’t experience when watching from home. The obvious one is the camera people on stage; with almost each award presenter and acceptance speech there’d be a camera person following and twirling around them. Besides that if you paid attention to the stalls, you could see seat fillers running around and kneeling in between shots. It’s something you know that happens when you watch at home, but never get to see.

It was so much fun to experience the ceremony live and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. My favourite acceptance speech of the night was Christoph Waltz’s; he was sweet and his shout out to Quentin Tarantino was awesome (“You silver penned devil, you”). I’m still not a fan of Argo; I get what people like about it, but from all the movies nominated this year, it’s the one I enjoyed the least.

I’ve previously written about the poster designs by Jonathan Burton (see my post here). Each of the five Best Film nominations got a gorgeous design to be used on the BAFTA programmes and ever since hearing I was going I’ve been curious to see which one I’d get. I was surprised to find that they weren’t being handed out deliberately; instead, at each entrance of the seating galleries were stacks of the programmes just lying on the floor. The one near our door was the programme for Zero Dark Thirty, but on our way out I managed to grab an Argo one as well!

Grosvenor House

And then the ceremony was finished. We were all reminded that transport to Grosvenor House would be taken care of and if we could all make our way to the coaches outside. Looking at the timestamps of my tweets, I realized it took us about 30 minutes to only get out of the auditorium, out of the Royal Opera House and into a bus.

It took us at least another 30 minutes to get through central London to Grosvenor House. Add to that the bustle of getting inside, showing my ticket, queuing for the cloak room, manoeuvring between the maze of tables and people and figuring out where my table was, and it was about eleven o’clock by the time I finally was seated.

It’s no wonder though. On the night I did a quick calculation: I saw a table “163” with each table seating 8, so there were at least 1300 people. Then someone pointed out some tables fitted 20… Once home I finally found some stats: the Royal Opera house seats 2256 people and there were 1920 guests dining at Grosvenor House. That’s an amazing amount of people to move around and manage.

The Dinner

The dinner took place in the Great Room and it looked amazing. Every table was dressed with one of five centerpieces, each representing the five Best Film Nominees. And they each had placemats with scenes from the corresponding movies. It all was stunning and really gave the feeling I was dining in Movie Wonderland.

I was a bit hesitant of wandering around the tables in the hopes of bumping into celebrities. I had been struggling with my dress the entire night (it really was too long and people kept stepping on it; it’s a wonder I didn’t trip up) and I’ve never really like the idea of going up to stars when it’s their special night. I still managed to see some of them from a distance, but maybe I should have gone up to them and told them how much I love their movies.

My table was one of the Zero Dark Thirty themed ones. I loved the details in the centerpiece. I’m guessing they basically grabbed a ton of toy tanks, jeeps, planes, helicopters and action figures, spray-painted them and glued them randomly to a lamp. It looked great though! I was also happy with the placemat I got: Jessica Chastain looking cool.

When dinner was finally served, I was starving. The food was delicious. For starters, we got Bradan Orach Smoked Salmon, pickled fennel, granny smith apple, baby watercress and crème fraiche (I forgot to take a photo of this). The main course was… interesting: roasted loin of Bolton Abbey lamb with shepherd’s pie, pea puree and glazed carrots. Yep, shepherd’s pie, although a shepherd’s pie unlike any I’ve ever seen. Finally for dessert: salted caramel cremeux with Hotel Chocolat 70% chocolate mousse.

Again I realize just how much coordination is needed to arrange such a dinner. 1920 guests. Woah. It’s astonishing just how much work and money went into creating this entire experience.

After the dinner, we all made our way to the Disaronno After party, where delicious cocktails were served alongside chocolate-dipped fruit. By then I had stopped taking photos and tweeting, and just attempted to relax and enjoy the party atmosphere. The Noisettes gave a great performance; this was the second time I saw them live and lead singer Shingai Shoniwa has such a bouncy and fun stage presence.

It was almost nearing three when I was all partied out. I took a cab home, unpacked all my goodies (the programmes, the Zero Dark Thirty placemat and perfume and mascara from Lancome) and crashed on the couch with my laptop. Of course I was too hyper to sleep; I had just been to the BAFTAs!

The next day I was delighted to find a thank you gift from Evian: a limited edition Diane von Furstenberg Evian bottle.

Thanks so much to Evian for giving me this opportunity. Attending the BAFTAs was truly an amazing experience and as I said at the start of this blog post it’s an evening I’ll never forget.

Next year again?