Stacking the Shelves #8

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Stacking the Shelves is a meme co-hosted by Tynga at Tynga’s Reviews and Marlene at Reading Reality, where you share the books you’ve added to your shelves in the past week. You can include books you buy, books you borrow, review books, gifts, and ebooks.

This week was kind to my TBR, with the addition of two books. The first is historical fiction, an ARC found on Edelweiss. The second is a book I’ve already read and reviewed.

It took a mere 1.5 seconds for me to decide I wanted to read Answer Creek. All I had to see what the first few words of the second sentence in the summary:

Starvation. Desperation. Madness. Shadowing the Donner Party as they trek west on the Oregon–California Trail, Answer Creek chronicles one young woman’s descent into depravity as she risks everything—values, faith, reputation, and every last coin sewn into the hem of her skirt—for the mirage of a better life in California.

From the award-winning author of Eliza Waite comes a gripping tale of adventure and survival based on the true story of the ill-fated Donner Party on their 2,200-mile trek on the Oregon–California Trail from 1846 to ’47.

Nineteen-year-old Ada Weeks confronts danger and calamity along the hazard-filled journey to California. After a fateful decision that delays the overlanders more than a month, she—along with eighty-one other members of the Donner Party—finds herself stranded at Truckee Lake on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, stuck there for the entirety of a despairing, blizzard-filled winter. Forced to eat shoe leather and blankets to survive, will Ada be able to battle the elements—and her own demons—as she envisions a new life in California?

Researched with impeccable detail and filled with imagery as wide as the western prairie, Answer Creek blends history and hearsay in an unforgettable story of challenging the limits of human endurance and experiencing the triumphant power of love.

This will become the third book I’ll review about the tragic Donner Party. (The first was nonfiction, while the second was a novel with a supernatural twist.)

My purchase of Guts: The Anatomy of The Walking Dead, a book I reviewed in August 2017, was brought about by a chance bit of serendipity.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks quietly making changes to the look of this blog. Rather than do it the easy way—changing only the header image and background colors—I decided to take the time and do a proper makeover. Part of that entailed making sure my review graphics shared the same look, which included a new badge for books I tagged (or, in the case of Guts, forgot to tag) as highly recommended.

After making the new review graphic, I became curious about the cost of a hardcover, and checked Amazon. I was delighted to discover it was on sale, at a whopping 75% off! It was obviously time for the long-planned purchase to happen, so I placed the order, and it should arrive around the first week of January.

I’m extra excited about this purchase because this is a book that should have already been on my shelves. Back in 2017, a fansite of The Walking Dead hosted a giveaway on Twitter for this very book, as a promotion for both the book and 100th episode of the television series (the season 8 premier, October 22, 2017). I entered the giveaway, and was informed that I was one of the winners. Naturally, I was quite excited and immediately gave them my shipping details, and then… nothing. Weeks, then months, went by, and the book never arrived. Of course, I attempted several times to contact the giveaway host about it, to let them know my book never arrived. Whether it was sent publicly or privately, none of my messages received a response. After a while, I decided I would have to let it go and accept that (for whatever reason) they were not going to honor their obligations for the giveaway by actually sending me the book they said I’d won—I’d just buy my own copy at some point.

I was bitterly disappointed about it, even though I’d already read the book, and upset that anyone would bother doing a giveaway without following through on it. I’d heard of it happening, of course, but didn’t fully appreciate how it felt until I was on the receiving end of, well, nothing. It’s a shameful thing for any blogger to do, and breaks the trust of once enthusiastic followers. Perhaps there was an issue of some sort, something that prevented them from fulfilling the obligation that, while regrettable, might have been understandable. It’s possible, but I’ll never know, because the chose to ignore my messages. At the very least, an explanation and apology would have been nice.

The website is gone now, and the tweet announcing the winners of the giveaway has been deleted from their account. I still have the screenshot I took back then, though. (I shared it on Facebook, to talk about how excited I was to win the giveaway.) I wonder if any of the other three ever received a copy of the book? Probably not.

Oh, well. It truly doesn’t matter anymore. I didn’t realize I was still upset about the whole debacle, until I started writing this post. Disappointment tends to linger, I suppose. Yikes!

Anyway… that’s the long story explaining why I’m so excited to finally have a copy of Guts: The Anatomy of The Walking Dead making its way to my shelves two years, two months, and six days after I mentally chose its place of honor.

What books did you add to your shelves this week?