September book haul - YA fiction, thrillers and more!

Autumn is when I always seem to get really back into reading. There's nothing better than curling up under a blanket, lighting some candles and turning away from the world for a couple of hours to read on a chilly evening. So it's no surprise that I've picked up a whole selection of new reads in the last month. There are some books in here that I've been wanting to buy for over a year, and I'm so happy to finally see them lining my shelves!

Summer book haul

I never thought I'd be saying this but ... I've been buying fewer books recently, and I'm okay with it. I'm trying to condense my unreasonably huge TBR a little, and buying fewer books means that I'm less likely to get distracted by new reads.

October Book Haul

I'm finally starting to catch up on my blog schedule, so this isn't halfway through the month like my last few 'end of the month' book hauls have been. It feels hella strange, but I'm here and ready to chat books. I've forced myself way out of my comfort zone this month: I mean, there's not even any YA fiction on here. A whole load of these are books that I've been meaning to read for years, so I was beyond happy when they cropped up in my local British Heart Foundation charity book shop.

The Red-House Mystery by A. A. Milne. I had NO idea that the author of Winnie-the-Pooh wrote a detective novel. How epic is that?! It's a pretty short book, but I'm looking forward to seeing how Milne wrote with adults as his intended audience.
What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn. This debut novel is a mystery one. It's all about a little girl who goes missing in a shopping centre, and how empty consumerism is. Flash forward twenty years, and a security guard in the shopping centre is convinced he sees a little girl wandering around at night ... This sounds a little creepy, but it's the social commentary that I'm really intrigued by.
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. I'm not an Austen fan. There, I said it. I am however a massive fan of classic Gothic texts. In Northanger Abbey, Austen subverts her normal narrative style to expose the darker side of life.
Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella. This is going to be such a light-hearted read, which we definitely all need every so often. The film is one of my sister's favourite films in the world, and I really wanted to give the book a go to see if I enjoy Kinsella's writing enough to go after another of her books. 

The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry is a book that everyone seemed to be talking about last year, so I'm a little late to the party on this one. It's a modern Gothic text set in the Victorian era. It has everything you want in a Gothic book in it: suspicious characters, the supernatural, a questioning of what really *is* good or bad and a widow. 
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I held off of watching the recent series of this on TV because I wanted to read the book first, but I've heard incredible things about both. It's been a long time since I've read a dystopian novel, but one with a feminist twist seems like the perfect book to reintroduce me to the genre.
The Teacher by Katerina Diamond. I picked up The Secret by the same author a few months ago and read it in October. It was everything a crime thriller should be: gripping, gruesome and with a hint of mistrust at the UK's police force. The Teacher sounds as though it's going to be just as shocking and disturbing, and forms an earlier part of the series that both books are in.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. A few months ago I also picked up The Kite Runner. At the time it was a close call between the two books, so this month I grabbed A Thousand Splendid Suns off the shelf too. It focuses on two women from different generations: Mariam and Laila. Mariam comes from an unfavourable family and is forced into a marriage she doesn't want to commit to. Things only get worse when Mariam's husband makes a marriage proposal to Laila ... I haven't read many (if any) books by an Afghan-born author, so I'm excited to expand my reading horizons with this and The Kite Runner.
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. This is a book that I've heard so much about (probably because it was made into a film in 2005). Golden explores the world of a geisha working in Kyoto before, during and after World War II. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know masses about this aspect of Japanese culture, so it'll be interesting to discover more about it, albeit through the lens of an American author.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Just after I bought this, I found out that my work's book club is reading another of Ishiguro's novels, The Buried Giant, so I actually picked that up too. This is a dystopian novel in which the children at a boarding school are there to develop in a healthy way so that their organs can be donated. It sounds hella creepy, but also super interesting. 
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LUSH Valentines Range Picks

LUSH's ranges always seem to signal the start of a new season, or festive time. We all get super excited when the Halloween range comes out, because duh, that means Autumn is here, and I'm not even going to mention the Christmas range. But I actually think that the Valentines range is my favourite (wild, I know). It offers a bright little variety into the bleak dullness of Winter, reminds me that I probably ought to find a card for my OH right about now, and the pieces they bring out are just so cute. 

December and January Book Haul

It's official. I've fallen back in love with reading. A total head-over-heels, can't put things down kind of love. And it's the best. In November I posted my first ever book haul on Nourish ME, and I spoke all about how I want to start doing more bookish posts in 2017. So here we are with round two of the book hauls. In December I didn't pick up that many books, as Christmas was keeping my spirits up, and I wasn't popping into my local charity shop to peruse the shelves as often. But, the January blues hit me hard, so I've now got quite a collection from the past two months to share with you. 

January Sales Picks

It's the week of Blue Monday, so to try and perk me (and you all) up a little bit, I've decided to write a post on the best part of January: the sales. Amidst the dreary weather, dark afternoons and metaphorical belt-tightening, we're faced with a glimmer of hope. Every time I walk through the high street at the moment I'm bombarded with an array of bold, in-your-face signs, screaming 'FURTHER REDUCTIONS', '50% OFF', 'SALE CONTINUES' and the suchlike. 

Festive Homeware Haul

Moving into my first home that wasn't a student home, or a parental home was such a massive deal to me, as you all know. I've been so excited about filling my home with stuff that I choose to have, and arranging everything in a way I like. Christmas is definitely the most wonderful time of the year, but having no festive homeware was seriously starting to grate on me a few weeks ago. I LIVE for this kind of thing you see, and what's Christmas without festive tea towels really?
Funds are a bit low at this time of year (note: moving house at the beginning of November makes Christmas shopping really tight on the ol' budget). So, I've been out finding gems in my three new favourite places: B & M, The Range and T K Maxx. T K Maxx can sometimes be a bit on the pricey side, but if you dedicate a whole lotta time, and a whole lotta trips to heading in there, then there are some shiny little deals to be found. Sometimes literally. I mean, what's better than a bit of festive sparkle?!
The burnt-out looking wooden tealight holder with deer cutouts is possibly my favourite thing I've ever bought. This was something that I actually picked up in Homesense, despite being more than a little disappointed in their overall range of festive homeware. Maybe I was just promised too many great things from the store, but after a scour around our two-story Homesense, this was the only thing that really caught my eye.
The Range, on the other hand, was a shop that I seriously underestimated. I'm going to be posting a Christmas tree decorations haul at some point in the near future, and that is going to be even more awash with goodies from The Range than this was, but oh my, did I love it. They've got everything, ranging from the glary in-your-face slightly tacky decorations (my fave), to chic, subtle ones, and everything in between. 
I have spent so long this year looking for the perfect festive tablecloth for the big day. Everywhere seems to only sell plastic ones that are vaguely festive, but I really wanted a nice fabric one. Their tartan fabric tablecloth was absolutely perfect, and now what I really need is some matching bedding. 
This little standing Robin in a Santa hat was just too cute to leave behind. I really wanted some bits and pieces that I could put on our sideboards and mantelpieces in the house to make everything look a bit more festive. We still haven't bought any little finishing touches for the house, so these are starting to make it feel a little bit more like a home. This is currently sitting on our dining room sideboard with the 'Christmas' sign which we'll likely be using as a little letter holder.
I picked up another standalone Christmas ornament in The Range, which I haven't got pictures of here (blogmas is clearly going very well for me), BUT I do show and mention in my festive decorations haul video which I'll be linking for you at the end of this post. My boyfriend picked out a little sitting polar bear wearing a scarf for the mantelpiece in the living room, which is much more 'his' room than it is mine. And finally, I got a little light up snowman ornament for my office/spare room from B & M. Me and my sister had these as children, so I hope she'll be as excited as I was to see it when it's sat in her room when she comes to stay over Christmas!
My final section of homeware picks kind of brings me full circle back to the first one, as it is Christmas linen. Now, although I don't have any Christmas bedding at the moment (I may have to shed a tear or two if I don't get some soon), I have stocked up on Christmas tea towels, hand towels and flannels. Because priorities. I may have told a lie earlier and the tea towels with Santa legs are my favourite homeware pick. Either way, it's a pretty darn close run game between that and the tea light holder. It's probably the least useful tea towel out there, but I'm giving a little thank you to the T K Maxx gods for bringing this absolute gem into my life. 
On the more practical side of things, I grabbed a set of 4 festive tea towels that will actually dry things from B and M for £2.49. Another reason why B and M is the king of cheap Christmas finds. These are the little white tea towels with various Christmas drawings on that you can see poking out in some of the photos. 
Here's my video of my Christmas homeware haul, which has a few extra bits and pieces that I didn't mention or manage to photograph for this post, so have a peek:

What have you picked up for your home this year?

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November Book Haul

Reading is my second favourite thing to do in my spare time (after blogging of course), especially when my mental health isn't brilliant. I found November quite a challenging month, so I picked up more than a few books on my way to/from work as a little reward for myself for fighting my anxiety and actually getting to my shifts. Most of these have come from charity shops, because, quite frankly, always buying brand new books is just far too expensive. I've gone for a pretty broad range in terms of genres and when the books where written to keep my reading varied over the coming months. 
I made a video of my first book haul for this blog over on my Youtube channel, and here it is: 

So, here are all the books in my book haul this month:

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel. The Walking Dead is my absolute favourite TV show at the moment, but I've never read a book about any kind of similar dystopian world. Station Eleven is all about a deadly virus that breaks out in North America and its aftermath.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Victorian fiction is my one true love really, but I've never read this, which is dubbed 'the first sensation novel'. I'm feeling a bit intimidated by the fact that it's almost 700 pages long, but excited to see how it compares to Dickens' work as he mentored the author of The Woman in White. 

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith. If you didn't know already, this is the pseudonym for J K Rowling that she assumed for her novels after the Harry Potter series was finished. This is a murder mystery; something I haven't read much of. I'm looking forward to seeing how the writing compares to her previous novels.

I Was Here by Gayle Forman. This is one of the Zoella book club picks (and not the only one in my haul). Its plot centres around a teenager who has committed suicide, leaving her best friend alone. I hope that this tackles mental health issues in an appropriate and respectful way and can't wait to get started on this.

The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes by Anna McPartlin. I chose this one because the cover was pretty, I won't lie. But, it sounds intriguing as it's all about the main character's last days before she passes away, and what she decides to do with them. 

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. Despite having both books on my shelves for a couple of weeks now, I've only just noticed that this author wrote both The Moonstone and The Woman in White. Whoops. This is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, crime novel out there, and I'm so ready to see how the genre kicked off. 

Underworld by Meg Cabot. As a teen, this was my favourite author of all time. I spent a good while wishing I would wake up one day as Mia. Recently I read Abandon, which is a much darker, more gothic text. Underworld is the sequel to Abandon and I need to find out what happens after the cliffhanger.

The Last Letter From Your Lover by Jojo Moyes. Me Before You is one of the best books I've read all year, so it was a total no-brainer to pick up another one by the same author. I just hope it lives up to my expectations.

Frozen Charlotte by Alex Bell. This is another one from the Zoella book club. Despite having read a lot of classic gothic horror, I've never actually read any contemporary horror novels. This will be my first one, and I'm excited to see how it compares to the classics.

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo. This is my final book of the haul, and another Zoella book club pick. This is the one that I'm most interested in out of her Autumn book club because it centres around a trans* individual. The author gives us all an insight into what it's like to be a trans* teenager at school, and the difficulties you might face.

Let me know if you liked this post and want to see more book hauls in the future! What have you picked up this month?

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Paperchase Christmas Haul

I know, I know, it's November and I've got a Christmas post up, BUT I truly do think that this is 'the most wonderful time of the year'. And I want to extend the preparations and excitement over as long a period as possible, obvs. Aside from that, it's our first Christmas in our own house, and we currently have no decorations or anything, so I'm trying to spread out the cost by getting cracking on buying bits and pieces now rather than having to do it all in one go and making my bank balance look more than a little sad.
We all know how much I adore stationery, and it's one of the first thing that gets me excited abut Christmas. I love sending cards to family and friends, letting them know that I'm thinking about them in this season. Everyone says that 'it's the thought that counts' and I really do abide by this motto at this time of year. I spend a ridiculous amount of time choosing what wrapping paper I'm going to use for each person's presents and which card most suits them. 
I started off with wrapping paper because necessities come first. Paperchase are actually doing a 3 for 2 deal on their wrapping rolls at the moment so I had to whittle my options down to three rolls. So, I went with a fun one, a sophisticated one and one that is a good all-rounder for adults and children. 
The sprouts wrapping paper is probably my favourite one of all time. I bought it last year and was a little too excited to see that Paperchase had it in this year too. Clearly I wasn't the only one who enjoyed it! The happy little faces of the sprouts were just too much. And so obviously when I saw the sprouts cards I couldn't resist them either. I don't remember seeing them last year (I for sure would have picked them up if I had), so I was pleasantly surprised.
On the sophisticated level, I went for the gold dot tree wrapping paper. This is nice and simple, and is definitely something I could see myself wrapping my Grandma's pressies in - I think she would love it! The Merry and Bright cards are also a little more classy than the sprouts ones, and will probably be going to my family members. The plain brown background makes the bold Christmassy colours stand out. 
And then on the good all-rounder front I went for a cute, slightly abstract reindeer wrapping paper. We don't have very many littluns to buy for, so I didn't want one that could only be used for kids. This hit a nice medium, by being appropriate for children whilst being something I wouldn't feel weird about wrapping an adult's pressies in. To go with this, I picked up the twelve days of Christmas cards, which I would be comfortable giving to family, work colleagues and friends. 
Then I moved onto wrapping accessories. These are something that I'm usually pretty shitty at getting. I'm not brilliant at wrapping in itself, and adding on bows, ribbons and tags just over complicates my un-creative brain. But, I ventured out into it so that I could make my sister's presents look cute because I know she loves it.
My first port of call was tags. Last year I picked up these multicoloured glitter tags and this was another thing that had to be a repurchase. They're an absolute steal at £1.50 for ten and the quality is amazing. I had already picked up some bows from Tiger, so I was sorted on that front, but ribbon was next up on my wishlist. Their 20m gold curling ribbon was exactly what I wanted, especially for £1! This is perfect for pairing with the gold dot tree wrapping paper. The gift stickers were also a must have for me. I'm a sucker for buying people lots of small gifts rather than one big pressie, so getting tags for all of them can end up being fairly pricey. In this gold sticker pack come 44 stickers which you can use for a variety of things. Some don't have enough space on to write a to/from, which I was really annoyed by when they arrived, but I'l just end up using them to decorate the presents.
And finally I picked up a couple of table decorations/Christmas blog props. Seriously though, how excited are you all to start seeing everyone using Christmas blog props? I'm pretty ecstatic. I got the Chloe characters 3-tier confetti to start with. We always do a buffet on Christmas evening, and this year I'm hosting for the first time, so I thought that these little nutcrackers, trees and candy canes would make for the cutest sprinkle for the table. Then I learnt a very important lesson about looking at the size of products before buying them. I picked up the mince spies appetiser plates, foolishly thinking they would be a reasonable size, but they're only big enough to hold a cupcake. These will probably end up just being used as quirky blog props and little decorations for the big day if I'm honest.
So there it is, my first Christmas haul! What would you have chosen?
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New Look Sale Haul | Nourish My Wardrobe

I've only really just begun to understand the importance of accessories. This may surprise some of you accessory lovers out there, but until about four months ago I only owned two handbags, five pairs of shoes and *the horror* no novelty socks. Seriously, Steph what were you doing?! After having the revelation that outfits are everything you put on your body, not just your clothes, I set out to rectify this. Now, I'm by no means fully cured yet, but this haul definitely gave this 2016 goal of mine a kick-start!
I figured the sales were the best place to start looking for cute things to perk up my outfits and my moods. I mean, who isn't a little cheered up by the thought of popcorn socks? Oddly enough, cute socks genuinely have the ability to change my mood in the morning and start my day off with a smile. I'm so gutted that New Look don't sell either the popcorn socks or the tartan ones anymore, but here's a link to a similar pair on their site!
If you've been keeping up to date with my posts recently, you'll probably recognise the outfit that this peach laser cut out bag is paired with as being the one from my recent OOTD post. I'm absolutely in love with this over sized clutch and it's found a perfect spot in my Spring wardrobe. I'm not someone you'll see wearing masses of bright colours as I prefer nudes and blacks, so this is great for me for adding a cheeky pop of colour without it being too in your face. 
I'm not going to lie, I have a bit of a thing for hats. All of my baby pictures seem to feature me wearing a variety of them that my dad loved putting on me, and it probably stems from there. Now, I did NOT need to add another bobble hat to my collection (embarrassing confession time: I have more bobble hats than handbags, say whaaat), but this one (similar here) had a MASSIVE bobble on it, so obviously I couldn't resist. 
That bobble hat has been my go-to when the days have been chilly out, but for nights, I've fallen a little in love with this metallic headscarf (similar here). I'm SO glad I picked this up before New Look stopped selling it, but they have a whole range of colours and patterns on their site, so if you want something like this I'd definitely have a peek!
Finally, we come to the girliest accessory of the bunch. And yes, we are going to ignore the fact that I did pick up a top as well because it was utterly horrendous on me - some kind of weird semi, see-through, scratchy number that made me look totally shapeless. That one went straight into my charity shop bag. Now, back to these pretty feather earrings (similar here). They are so unique with a long gold strip on one side and the delicate chain with a feather at the bottom on the other, however they are actual little bastards to get in. As NL no longer stock them, I've given you guys a link to similar ones that don't take half an hour to put in!
I hope you enjoyed reading about this haul, what have you picked up from New Look recently?