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Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar // Night Markets, Star Courts and Desi goodness

GOODREADS // AMAZON // BOOK DEPOSITORY The daughter of a star and a mortal, Sheetal is used to keeping secrets. Pretending to be "normal." But when an accidental flare of her starfire puts her human father in the hospital, Sheetal needs a full star's help to heal him. A star like her mother, who returned to the sky long ago. Sheetal's quest to save her father will take her to a celestial court of shining wonders and dark shadows, where she must take the stage as her family's champion in a competition to decide the next ruling house of the heavens--and win, or risk never returning to Earth at all. This gorgeously imagined YA debut blends shades of Neil Gaiman's Stardust and a breathtaking landscape of Hindu mythology into a radiant contemporary fantasy.   ( A huge thank you to the  HOV Tours  and HarperTeen for the eARC and the opportunity to be a part of this blog tour.  ~When a book sees you~      Yes I am absolutely going to s

The Blog Squad - Part 23

We are a group of three book bloggers situated on different continents but brought together by our love for books and a penchant for talking about them. We’ve joined our forces to create a collaborative series of posts about book blogging and we hope you’ll enjoy the discussions.
BOOK REVIEWS BY DI - Di Hewlett

What are Blog Buttons? What do you think of them?

Di says....png


A blog button is basically a little badge that links to a blog when it’s clicked. They are generally placed in a sidebar or on a page to show support for another blog. You can design your own with a Grab My Button generator and add the widget to your blog to allow other bloggers to ‘Grab Your Button’.
Amy says.......png

Blog buttons are basically images that are embedded with your blog link. You can design them through Grab My Button Generator, and then copy the HTMl code to a widget, etc, on your blog, and it’ll show up. It’s your logo, so to speak.
Other people can then copy that same HTML code onto their blogs, your blog button will show up, and if people click on it they’re taken to your blog. It’s a form of advertising.

I LOVE blog buttons, but I’ve been without one for a while because of the lack of sidebar space. Hopefully I’ll be able to bring mine back sometime in the future; they always look so cute and cool in your sidebar!
I love them.     

What are your "top" widgets that you use on your blog?

Di says....png

Follow Me
As far as widgets go the most important one on your blog will be any that allow people to follow your blog. Either by GFC, BlogLovin, Subscribing to your emails or your social media links.

Blog Archive
Also important is a way for people to be able to read your older posts - I often like browsing back over the previous month or so to see what a blogger might have posted, especially if the blog is new to me. I like to see what reviews have been published (are our reading interests similar?), what memes does the blogger participate in and how regularly have they been posting.

Blogger Profile
I also like to see a bit of a profile pic and a short paragraph or two introducing the person behind the blog.

Blog Search

Another easily forgotten but definitely important widget for me is a search bar so that readers can easily find whatever they may be looking for on a blog. I often find myself searching blogs for a specific book or post.

Amy says.......png
I only go with the bare essentials because of my limited sidebar space (I’m thinking about adding a second one soon, though…)

My widgets are:
  • GFC followers widget so people can follow me.
  • Blogger profile blurb so people can get a glimpse of who I am and what my blog’s about.
  • Blog Archive because it’s professional and helpful and basically essential
  • My social media links so peeps can stalk me elsewhere
  • My tiny blog roll because I love advertising other blogs
  • My Goodreads challenge just because

There are a ton of other widgets I’d love to add, but because of my limited space and because I don’t want clutter or slow page loading speed, those are the ones I stick with.

Do you have a blog roll on your blog?

Di says....png


At the moment I don’t. I used to and bringing this back is something I’m still working on. Creating a dedicated page for a blog roll is one of my top blogging priorities actually but I just never seem to be able to find the time to get around to it! Not only is it to support other blogs and show their latest posts, but I also find it so useful for myself to be able to quickly visit new posts on my favourite blogs.
Amy says.......png

I do but it’s SO TINY! *sigh*

There are a million other blogs out there (slight exaggeration) I’d love to include in my blog roll, but my sidebar space is extremely limited. I could add more, but then the sidebar would be longer than the blog post homepage and things will look messy. Believe me, I’ve tried to find a way around this and it just ain’t happening.

Go over to their collab posts to know my answers!:
Book Reviews by Di
A Magical World of Words

We hope you’ve enjoyed the latest in our series of discussion posts! Please talk to us and let us know YOUR answers below. What do you think of our responses? If you have any specific questions you’d like us to address in the future, please let us know in the comments section below.

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