Friday, February 28, 2014

Feature and Follow Friday #97




Feature Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Rachel of Parajunkee and Alison of Alison Can Read!


Featured Blog:


and

TashBrilliantBookBlog




Featured Question:

Question of the Week: 
Change the Plot. If you could, what book would you change the ending or a plot thread? Go ahead and do it...change it.
Answer:

HMMM. I really can't think of any I would change. I know this is a boring answer, but I don't think about changing anything in a book. It isn't my story, so I can't imagine it going any other way than what the author planned. A few books I wish the character building, pacing, or excitement would have been better..... Divergent. I thought the idea, the plot, the storyline... it was good, well thought out, but I couldn't connect to any of the characters and it was way too slow for me. Not enough excitement to keep me interested. SO there are a few I would of loved to be written a bit differently and I feel was a bit of a disappointment for the plot idea. I know not really answering the question. So sorry.




Thursday, February 27, 2014

Delightful Discoveries #55



Delightful Discoveries are books that I have discovered recently... old, new, just released... from blogs, Goodreads, libraries, friends, or bookstores. 



Salt & StormSalt and Storm by Kendall Kulper

  

A sweeping historical romance about a witch who foresees her own murder--and the one boy who can help change her future.
Sixteen-year-old Avery Roe wants only to take her rightful place as the witch of Prince Island, making the charms that keep the island's whalers safe at sea, but her mother has forced her into a magic-free world of proper manners and respectability. When Avery dreams she's to be murdered, she knows time is running out to unlock her magic and save herself.
Avery finds an unexpected ally in a tattooed harpoon boy named Tane--a sailor with magic of his own, who moves Avery in ways she never expected. Becoming a witch might stop her murder and save her island from ruin, but Avery discovers her magic requires a sacrifice she never prepared for.




Fool Me Twice
Fool Me Twice by Mandy Hubbard




Last summer, Mackenzie and Landon were the perfect couple. And then he dumped her and broke her heart. Fast forward a year and they’re back at their summer jobs at Serenity Ranch and Spa. And Mack and her best friend Bailey are spending their time fantasizing about making voodoo dolls and playing childish pranks on Landon.

Lucky for Mack, the perfect opportunity presents itself. Landon takes a nasty fall and suddenly he’s stuck in the past—literally. His most recent memory is of last summer, when they were together, so now he’s calling Mack pet names and hanging all over her.

The plan is simple: keep Landon at arm’s length, manipulate him so he’s the one falling in love, and then BAM, dump him in the most epic revenge plot in the history of everdom. There’s only one teensy problem: Mack can’t fall for Landon a second time.







They All Fall Down
They All Fall Down by Roxanne St. Claire



Pretty Little Liars meets Final Destination in this YA psychological thriller that will have readers' hearts racing right till the very end!

Every year, the lives of ten girls at Vienna High are transformed.

All because of the list.

Kenzie Summerall can't imagine how she's been voted onto a list of the hottest girls in school, but when she lands at number five, her average life becomes dazzling. Doors open to the best parties, new friends surround her, the cutest jock in school is after her.

This is the power of the list. If you're on it, your life changes.

If you're on it this year? Your life ends.


Don't Try to Find Me
Don't Try to Find Me By Holly Brown 



  
Don't try to find me. Though the message on the kitchen white board is written in Marley's hand, her mother Rachel knows there has to be some other explanation. Marley would never run away.

As the days pass and it sinks in that the impossible has occurred, Rachel and her husband Paul are informed that the police have "limited resources." If they want their 14-year-old daughter back, they will have to find her themselves. Desperation becomes determination when Paul turns to Facebook and Twitter, and launches FindMarley.com.

But Marley isn't the only one with secrets.

With public exposure comes scrutiny, and when Rachel blows a television interview, the dirty speculation begins. Now, the blogosphere is convinced Rachel is hiding something. It's not what they think; Rachel would never hurt Marley. Not intentionally, anyway. But when it's discovered that she's lied, even to the police, the devoted mother becomes a suspect in Marley's disappearance.

Is Marley out there somewhere, watching it all happen, or is the truth something far worse?




Stitching Snow
 Stitching by R.C. Lewis 



Princess Snow is missing.

Her home planet is filled with violence and corruption at the hands of King Matthias and his wife as they attempt to punish her captors. The king will stop at nothing to get his beloved daughter back—but that’s assuming she wants to return at all.

Essie has grown used to being cold. Temperatures on the planet Thanda are always sub-zero, and she fills her days with coding and repairs for the seven loyal drones that run the local mines.

When a mysterious young man named Dane crash-lands near her home, Essie agrees to help the pilot repair his ship. But soon she realizes that Dane’s arrival was far from accidental, and she’s pulled into the heart of a war she’s risked everything to avoid. With the galaxy’s future—and her own—in jeopardy, Essie must choose who to trust in a fiery fight for survival.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Waiting on Wednesday #100




Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.




The Murder Complex (The Murder Complex, #1)
The Murder Complex

June 10th 2014


An action-packed, blood-soaked, futuristic debut thriller set in a world where the murder rate is higher than the birthrate. For fans of Moira Young’s Dust Lands series, La Femme Nikita, and the movie Hanna.

Meadow Woodson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has been trained by her father to fight, to kill, and to survive in any situation, lives with her family on a houseboat in Florida. The state is controlled by The Murder Complex, an organization that tracks the population with precision.

The plot starts to thicken when Meadow meets Zephyr James, who is—although he doesn’t know it—one of the MC’s programmed assassins. Is their meeting a coincidence? Destiny? Or part of a terrifying strategy? And will Zephyr keep Meadow from discovering the haunting truth about her family?

Action-packed, blood-soaked, and chilling, this is a dark and compelling debut novel by Lindsay Cummings.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Review: Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge


Cruel BeautyTitle: Cruel Beauty 
Author: Rosamund Hodge
Publisher:  Balzer + Bray 
Publishing Date: January 28th 2014
Pages: 346
Genre:  YA Fairytale Retelling/Gothic Horror
Series: Cruel Beauty Universe #1
Source: Audio

  


Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.
Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.
With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.
But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle-a shifting maze of magical rooms-enthralls her.
As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.



I was so totally excited about this book. Love everything at first glance. Love the title, love the cover, love the summary. What's not to love right. I wasn't disappointed. The book was everything I expected and more. It was dark, it was romantic, it was exciting, it was a bit creepy, it was beautiful. 

Nyx was promised, by her father, as a payment for a bargain he made with a monster, a demon, someone that has entrapped their land and is seen as pure evil. Nyx will marry him when she becomes of age. Which she does and is dropped off at his front door. She isn't just to marry him but is expected to conquer him, kill him, even if it means killing herself in the process. Once she gets to the castle, Nyx finds that things aren't that simple and the demon, Ignifex isn't what she thought him to be. She embarks on a journey inside the house to find what she needs to destoy him. She has a bit of help from Shadow, which is well a shadow. What Nyx doesn't expect to happen, her hesitation in defeating the monster who has enslaved her or the fact that she may be just as evil on the inside. 

I am not sure where to begin with this review. I know without a doubt I am over the tops in love with this book, the characters, the story line, the writing, the setting, it was all just superb, out of this world, magnificent, lovely, an so many more words I could use to describe the wonderfulness of this book. So I may run on a bit and possibly get off track because this book totally muddled my brain. 

One of my favorite things about this book was the writing. The writing was just beautiful, dark, poetic. I loved the flow and fluidity of the words. I am not one that talks about the writing much, except to say if I liked it or not. The writing in this book made the book for me. The writing style gave the book character of its own. I felt I was in another world, a world of its own, a world I loved. 

The goodness doesn't stop there. The story line was very alluring, romantic, and very mythical. I love Beauty and the Beast. It is my favorite fairy tale and I was really happy to see the dark come back into play. I also love Greek mythology or any mythology really, and I felt the mixture of mythology with fairy tale was genius. I couldn't think of a better fairy tale than Beauty and the Beast for this particular mixture. It brought on the dark and gave the story a great Gothic feel. Not only was there mythology but there was also fairies. More dark, more horror, more awe. 

The romance as also spectacular for me. There was a bit of insta love, but to me, it belongs in fairy tales. So I actually really loved the romance. It wasn't sweet and loving, it was passionate and frightening, grim, tragic. It fit with the characters very well. There was a bit of love triangle but not really. It all made sense in the end and felt like it was meant to fall just as it did. 

The characters were a love hate relationship. I loved and hated everyone of them and they will remain some of my favorite characters in many books to come. The main character Nyx was a very strong and determined girl. She knew her destiny and she accepted it. She didn't accept it well though. She hated her father, was bitter towards her sister, and was angry at her aunt. She accepted her purpose but despised it every inch of the way. It wasn't until Ignifex and shadow drew out her dark emotions that she started to accept things as they were and started to see so much more of everything else. She did have issues with self pity but that changed throughout the story. 

I really loved Ignifex. I know he was the bad guy, supposed to be evil and all that, but really he wasn't all that. He had more than one side to him and even though he was a bit unpredictable, I saw through his charades and fell for him. Every now and again his ugliness would show and I would wan to slap him, but he seemed to always redeem himself in some way. Although his redeeming qualities weren't the best either, I could see there was so much more underneath the horrid stuff. 

Shadow was another main character. I liked him enough. He had some pretty dark secrets, I knew from the beginning he wasn't who he tried to come off as. A nice guy. He was sweet but he had also had a dark side. I didn't quite connect to him as well as I did Ignifex, but I still very much liked him, he was a very wondrous part of the story. 

The pacing was just right, the book was slow but only in the sense I didn't feel rushed. There was so much to take in and enjoy I appreciated the slowness of things happening. I was able to savor it all. It was a bit predictable, but um its a retelling so yeah that would happen. It was a great spin to a classic fairy tale. 

This book will forever own a part of my heart. I will read and re- read, and probably memorize this book. 




Rosamund Hodge

Rosamund Hodge grew up as a homeschooler in Los Angeles, where she spent her time reading everything she could lay hands on, but especially fantasy and mythology. She got a BA in English from the University of Dallas and an MSt in Medieval English from Oxford, and she now lives in Seattle with seven toy cats and a plush Cthulhu. Visit her on the web at http://www.rosamundhodge.net/

Teaser Tuesday #96 and Top Ten Tuesday #86

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Should Be Reading. Bloggers choose two
sentences out of our current read to peak others' curiosity.




Ashfall (Ashfall, #1)

Ashfall by Mike Mullin

                                 


Under the bubbling hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano. Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.

For Alex, being left alone for the weekend means having the freedom to play computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. Alex begins a harrowing trek to seach for his family and finds help in Darla, a travel partner he meets along the way. Together they must find the strength and skills to survive and outlast an epic disaster.

Teaser:
I retched, bringing up nothing but scalding stomach acid. When I was done trying to vomit, I dug a crude hole with my staff and buried the dead rabbit.






Top Ten is an original feature/weekly meme created here at
The Broke and the Bookish that features a great bookish top ten every week.


Top Ten Sequels I'm Dying To Read


The Treatment (The Program, #2)Breakable (Contours of the Heart, #2)Rebel (Reboot, #2)Blood Of My Blood (Jasper Dent #3)In the End (In the After, #2)City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6)The Shadow Throne (The Ascendance Trilogy, #3)Sisters' Fate (The Cahill Witch Chronicles, #3)Starling (Secrets of the Eternal Rose, #3)In a Handful of Dust (Not a Drop to Drink, #2)


 
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