In My Mailbox #29 + A BLOG MAKEOVER!

Hello, kids - today we'll be discussing my shiny new books & my super duper new layout, how exciting is that?! :)

Firstly, I got some amazing books this week and here they are in all their glory:

PLAYING THE FIELD by Zoë Foster - Having adored Air Kisses, I've been wanting to read this one soooo badly, but since it has just been published in Australia, it isn't available on Amazon or Book Depository, boo. :( Thus I'd like to thank (like, a million times) the awesome Zoë and her publicist Kim for very kindly sending me this book and making me a veeeery happy bunny!

SWEET LITTLE LIES by Lauren Conrad - I bought the first book ages ago and still haven't read it, but I pre-ordered the second one nonetheless because it was so cheap that I just couldn't resist. Cute cover too!

PRINCESS FOR HIRE by Lindsey Leavitt - Another book that I pre-ordered a while ago! I went with the UK cover because it was three times cheaper than the US one and I have to admit I wasn't too sure about the UK cover at first, but it looks lovely in person and it's really growing on me!

Secondly, my blog has just received AN EXTREME MAKEOVER!!!
I've been wanting a three column layout for a while now and I had a general idea what I wanted my layout to look like so I contacted Rachel @ Parajunkee Design to help me out - and here's the result! Click here to see what my layout looked like before - yeah, talk about an upgrade of the year, huh? :) I think Rachel did an amazing, amazing job and I couldn't be more pleased with the final result - it's a million times better than I expected!
Rachel is so creative and I really can't recommend her enough! She's a book blogger herself and she offers 25 % discount for book bloggers and authors so she's really affordable and worth every single dime!
I contacted her saying I'd like to have a banner with three girls reading on a couch and each sort of personifying three genres I read most often: chick lit, historical and YA. She did the first draft incredibly fast and it was amazing, but then I still had like a million suggestions and ideas what could be changed and tweaked and whatnot. Trust me, I'm not the kind of person to say, "Just make my layout look pretty!", I pretty much commented on every colour and shape and came up with neverending ideas and suggestions, which probably drove poor Rachel crazy, lol. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I bet I was the customer from hell, but Rachel seriously did the most awesome job - not only did she carry out my ideas, she made them look even better! So I really just want to thank her for putting up with me and creating my favourite layout ever!
Phew, that was long and rambly as always, lol!

Anyway, I just wanted to say that Parajunkee is amazing and that I simply adore my new layout and I hope you like it too! :)

ps: Oh and I'm also in the process of creating my Goodreads account (it's nowhere near done and it's taking ages, I still have many more books to add and no time), but still feel free to have a look and follow me there or whatever: click here to visit my profile. I'm really new to it so excuse all the mess, I'll sort everything out soon! :)