Library Loot: Gymnastics, Mermaids and Achieving Your Dreams

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

(See my Library Loot from last week or the week before)

Here is what I have acquired from the library this week:

I didn’t pick up as many as in some previous weeks because I am still reading my way through a backlog. I am also going on holiday so can’t take too many with me and am hoping to clear some of my backlog of ARCs too.

This week I have picked up a complete mixture, some because I have heard lots of things about them, others just because they sound interesting!

The Secret Deep

When Aster wakes alone on a tropical island, she has no idea what has happened, why she is there, or where to find her younger sister, Poppy. Meanwhile Sam, who once met the sisters on a plane, makes links between the mystery of their disappearance and suspicious happenings in his own life. In a stunning dual narrative, the truth unravels with devastating effect – and the answer lies in the secret underwater world surrounding the desert island, populated by the beautiful and the impossible …

I have been hearing lots of good things about this from other bloggers and it sounds completely my kind of thing so I am looking forward to reading this. There is just something about stories set on islands and magical realism which I love!

A Boy Called Hope

I’m Dan Hope and deep inside my head I keep a list of things I want to come true.

For example, I want my sister, Ninja Grace, to go to university at the North Pole and only come back once a year.

I want to help Sherlock Holmes solve his most daring mystery yet. And if it could be a zombie mystery, all the more exciting.

I want to be the first eleven-year-old to land on the moon.

I want my dog to stop eating the planets and throwing them up on the carpet.

And finally, the biggest dream of all, I want my dad to love me.

A Boy Called Hope is a brave, bold and funny debut about family in all its shapes and sizes.

I have read Just Call Me Spaghetti-Hoop Boy and The Boy Who Sailed The Ocean in an Armchair and absolutely loved them both so am super-excited to read this! I am also happy to support a local author.

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock

This voyage is special. It will change everything…

One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door. One of his captains is waiting eagerly on the step. He has sold Jonah’s ship for what appears to be a mermaid.

As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours and brothels, everyone wants to see Mr Hancock’s marvel. Its arrival spins him out of his ordinary existence and through the doors of high society. At an opulent party, he makes the acquaintance of Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on… and a courtesan of great accomplishment. This chance meeting will steer both their lives onto a dangerous new course, a journey on which they will learn that priceless things come at the greatest cost…

I’ve been seeing this book everywhere so am excited to read it!

Making The Grade: Somersaults and Dreams 1

Ellie has a dream . . . to become a world-class gymnast. When she’s offered a place at the prestigious London Gymnastics Academy, it looks like she has a chance to make that dream come true. But there are many obstacles to overcome, new friends to make, and rivalries to face! Will she make it, against all the odds?

Making the Grade is the first book in the Somersaults and Dreams series, a rollercoaster ride full of friendship, rivalries, setbacks and triumphs, with echoes of classic stories like Ballet Shoes.

I grew up doing lots of gymnastics and became a gymnastics coach as soon as I could. Despite not having done gymnastics properly in a few years, I still have a very soft spot for the sport, continue to coach it and watch international gymnastics competitions religously. One of my favourite gymnastics books when I was younger was The Fortunate Few, a look at the darker side of the sport. I also loved Stick It, because, while there were tonnes of books for fans of ballet or horse-rising, there wasn’t much out there for gymnastics fans. This looks like a fun series!

Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised.

With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met.

I must be one of the last people on the planet not to have read this, especially as the movie came out earlier this year. Contemporary novels can be a bit hit-or-miss for me as my comfort zone is science-fction and fantasy, but I will read this. Better late than never I guess!

What do you think of the books I have chosen?

Would you like to read any of them?

Or are there any you would recommend me moving straight to the top of the TBR list?

Do you have a library near you?

How often do you borrow books?

Do you ever buy books after having already read them?

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Thanks for reading!