Blogging: #LivHelps Blogging Event

Blogging: #LivHelps Blogging Event

Tuesday, 23 August 2016

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This Saturday just passed, I was lucky enough to spend my afternoon with a bunch of fabulous bloggers at the #LivHelps blogging event. The event was hosted by the AMAZING Sammy at the equally fabulous Dough Bar just around the corner from Lime Street in Liverpool city centre. I’d never been to the venue before the event but I can say for sure that I’ll be dragging the other half there at some point soon as it was a lovely place with amazing food. But more on that later…

When I got to the event, I was a tad nervous as I wasn’t sure there’d be anyone there that I knew. Needless to say, I had absolutely no worries in sitting down and chatting to some of my fellow bloggers. I sat down at a table with Marie, Katie and Kayleigh and I am seriously glad I did because they’re absolutely lovely girls and it was an absolute pleasure to meet them. When we got there, Sammy handed out white envelopes- I opened mine up to discover that I’d won a little Clinique gift-set and was naturally over the moon there. We ordered drinks and food (I got loaded cheese fries with pulled pork which was absolutely AMAZING) and spent the vast majority of the afternoon chatting with the girls and getting to know one another. It was really nice to go to an event and have so much in common with people I’d never met before.

Sammy put on a little raffle which was full of the MOST AMAZING prizes (including a happiness planner that Sarah from Saloca in Wonderland was lucky enough to run away with!!). In typical Hollie fashion, I was blissfully unaware that I’d won a prize until Katie, stood next to me, let me know and I chose some vouchers for a little bar and restaurant on Liverpool waterfront. I’m looking forward to using them to have a much-needed little date night with my Other Half in the coming weeks!

The goodie bags that Sammy put together were ON ANOTHER LEVEL. They had all sorts of amazing goodies inside them, including (but not limited to!) a Diva Cup (which I found myself getting way too excited about), an amazing moisturiser from Alphah which everyone seemed  to go wild over but I’ve never heard of! I’ve used it and it makes my face feel amazing so I guess it’s definitely a winner! They also included a Love With Food subscription box, full to brim with gluten free goodies! I don’t follow a gluten free diet myself but a lot of gluten free products are also dairy free, for the sake of making things easier for everyone. I DO follow an (almost) dairy free diet so the box was a perfect way for me to try out some yummy snacks. Sammy let me know that the brand who provided us bloggers with the boxes also donated 50 boxes to Food Banks on our behalf, so that’s obviously an amazing thing!

We also got to choose a pair of sunglasses from Peridot, which was great for me as I have a habit of losing my sunnies every time I go away on holiday. Guess who just got back from Spain, sunglasses-less… The ones I chose are super cute and I’m looking forward to taking them away with me (and DEFINITELY coming home with them this time, I promise!)

Thank you SO much to Sammy for arranging such an amazing event- it was really obvious that you put a lot of time and effort into organising everything and getting such amazing brands on board. It was much appreciated, and I’m already looking forward to the next event!

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Book Review: Saving Sophie by Sam Carrington

Book Review: Saving Sophie by Sam Carrington

Saturday, 20 August 2016

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So far in August, I’ve been incredibly good and stuck to my promise of only reading ARCs sent to me by publishing houses, and this review is no exception to that rule. In July, I received an e-galley of Saving Sophie by Sam Carrington from the lovely team at Avon Books. As a self-proclaimed lover of all things psychological and thrilling, I was looking forward to getting well and truly stuck into this one as soon as it hit my inbox.

I’m pleased (and pretty relieved!) to say that it didn’t disappoint in the slightest. The storyline is pretty easy to follow and keeps you guessing right until the very end, which is exactly what I look for when I choose a psychological thriller. It follows a group of young girls who are best friends and the consequences that follow when one of them is murdered. The story begins with Sophie, a 17-year old girl, being driven home by a pair of police officers after what appears to be a drunken night out. The only issues? It’s only 10:30pm and she can’t remember a thing. Sophie greets her parents with incomprehensible mutterings before running up to bed to sleep off the alcohol she’s consumed. She awakes the next morning to find that a friend of hers has failed to return home after the night out, and the plots develops and deepens further and further as the story goes on.

As an author, Carrington does the psychological novel perfectly. She leaves absolutely no gaps in her story and all my questions were answered by the end. Everything seemed to fit together perfectly and made absolute sense in my mind. I enjoyed the flipping perspectives of Sophie and her mother, Karen, as I believe that that added a whole new element to the story. I love to try and figure out who the perpetrator is from the beginning and I’m quite chuffed to reveal that I was absolutely nowhere near with this one; it honestly left me completely by surprise and I’m very, very pleased with how the story ended.

The characterisation was amazing and I found myself getting attached to the characters- I empathised with both Sophie and Karen, felt irritated by some of their actions and found myself hoping for a positive outcome when things got a little creepy. I definitely doubted the integrity of every blooming character out there, even the ones who had given me no reason to doubt them! All signs of an amazing book.

I enjoyed Sam’s inclusion of agoraphobia in the tale- it was very informative and helped me start to develop my understanding of a phobia which I really don’t know a lot about. I found myself feeling incredibly sorry for Karen and I honestly can’t begin to understand how it feels to feel like a prisoner in your own home. I was hooked on the story from the word go and have already recommended it to a few people. I know for a fact that my work colleague downloaded the eBook from Amazon on my recommendation, so I’m hoping that she loves it as much as I did.

Thanks to Avon Books for my copy of the book!

4.5/5. 

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Life: Why I Blog

Life: Why I Blog

Thursday, 18 August 2016

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Not a lot of my friends outside of blogging are aware that I have this little haven to call my own. It’s not that I’m embarrassed to call myself a blogger- in fact, I’m very much the opposite; I’m incredibly proud of what I’ve achieved in such short a time period and have no issues discussing my hobby with people who I care about. There are, however, a small group of people who I know (and undoubtedly, every blogger has this small group of people in their lives!) who get great satisfaction out of mocking other people’s achievements and livelihoods for no reason whatsoever. For this reason alone, I have been quite secretive about my blogging and the writing I do alongside it. I’m not ashamed, I’m not embarrassed, I just don’t feel like baiting the nasty, closed-minded individuals who will likely feel the need to express their opinions about something that I feel so passionately about and have worked so hard to achieve.

But none of that answers the question of why it is exactly that I blog.

I blog for myself, I blog for the future and I blog for the memories. I love writing. I always have done and I probably always will. I can honestly say that, with the exception of reading of course, there is nothing hobby-wise that I love more than writing. I love sharing my opinions on books and it’s nice to know that people read my reviews and get something from them. I like to look back on what I’ve been doing in my life and blogging allows for a platform where all of that is possible. I like to remember the books I’ve loved and pass on my recommendations. It’s nice to share amazing experiences like eating out at a fabulous restaurant or visiting a cool tourist attraction.

Humans are instinctively nosy. It’s nice to have a nose into other people’s lives and see how the other side lives, so to speak. It’s nice to see if people have the same opinions as you do on certain topics. It’s a way for my family, who don’t live all that close to me, to check in with me without having to ring me up every five minutes. It’s a way for my writing skills to further develop now that I’ve finished university and the dreaded essays have ceased.

Blogging gives me something to do when I’m off work and don’t want to lounge around doing nothing. Blogging has helped me make a lot of friends, most of whom are likeminded and amazing individuals. I’ve worked with countless brands, publishing houses and organisations that I would never have had the opportunity to work with if not for blogging and I am a whole other level of grateful for this. Blogging has helped me advance my career, to quite a large extent, and allowed me to get freelance writing gigs that I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.

If you want to mock, then feel free but I wouldn’t be the person I am now without this fabulous and exciting hobby.

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