Trailer for Black Ice from Becca Fitzpatrick.

This looks spectacular!! I can't wait to get my hands... (or ears) on it!  If you have read it, I would love to hear what you have to say!!



Look for a review!!! I WILL READ THIS!!

Ever had a "Book Hangover"?

Right after I finished reading the whole Twilight series, I had all these strange feelings:   A huge let-down, a void, depression (well not quite), just missing something in my world.  So, what did I do?  I read them again!  As many of you know, I am not your typical reader type.  I wasn't born with a book in hand, quite the contrary actually.  I was a child born pre-ADHD.  Meaning, I lived a life thinking I was dumb, slow, different, because ADHD wasn't even known back then.  And I was definitely someone who HATED reading!  I couldn't keep my focus and I could never remember what I read.  People made fun of me, teachers/parents lost patience with me, I felt like I was UNTEACHABLE!  When a teacher of mine (who will remain anonymous) told me I should go to beauty school because I would never make it in college,  I believed it! So I never... EVER tried reading for fun. Besides, what genre would I read?  I don't know what I liked.  So when a few friends mentioned reading Twilight... VAMPIRES!! pftt... I just about didn't do it.  But when we took our son on his Make-A-Wish trip to Hawaii, I figured I could read it on the plane and the beach, right?  Little did I know what a comfort and distraction this book would be while we had to deal with a recurrence of his brain tumor while there.  I grabbed on to EVERY feeling I could get from that book.  It was like my minds vacation.  It kept me feeling something other than anxiety, pain, and heartache for just a few minutes a day.  It became an addiction!!!  So for me the word "Hangover" would be more like a "Withdraw"!

I have a confession to make... There are some books that I just haven't been able to read because they are the last book of the series.  Namely... Allegiant by Veronica Roth.  I heard a spoiler about it and I just can't bring myself to read it.  I know everyone has told me it is really good besides that one part... BUT... I just don't want it to be over or to end that way.  So MAYBE I will get the courage to read it and put it behind me?

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Just One Day by Gayle Forman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Summary:  

A breathtaking journey toward self-discovery and true love, from the author of If I Stay


When sheltered American good girl Allyson "LuLu" Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.
So I have readers guilt! I have avoided reading this book for two reasons. 1. I heard this book was mostly about the time after that "one day affair"... 2. I also heard there was a HUGE cliffhanger! So.... I waited until I could use my audible credit plus I waited until the sequel was out so I didn't have to wait so long. Kinda cheesy, right?

Well, my thoughts about this book were all over the place. Willem, a character who, I thought, represented the European playboy to a tee. Not that I have ever known one myself, but if I imagined a young, sexy, smooth, international traveler, Willem would be him. Add Shakespeare to it and viola instant romance! It was exciting to read at first, while on their One day affair, then tragic and heartbreaking. But the depression that Alison felt when returning back to the US just dragged and dragged. I guess if I had "given myself" to someone after one day, that would have brought on all kinds of regrets, heartache and depression, but really... I wanted to slap her out of it!

When it comes to young adult reads, I really get into the growing of the characters. It seems Alison really turned a 180, from being the quiet, timid, rule-follower, to a more adventurous and free-spirited girl. Standing up to her parents and pushing for what she wanted was a huge leap from who she was before.

For me, like in the book, I do not believe in coincidences... I trust fate or "accidents" as Willem put it.

As for the cliff-hanger... UUUGGHHH! Really? That has to be one of the biggest ones I have come across!! Thanks for that, Gayle Forman!! I love this kind of torture!!

There was some bad language, and a sex scene but not very detailed. Not something a young teen should read.

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Sweet Reckoning by Wendy Higgins

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Sweet Reckoning by Wendy Higgins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Summary:  

It’s time.


Evil is running rampant and sweet Anna Whitt is its target. Nobody knows when or how the Dukes will strike, but Anna and her Nephilim allies will do anything necessary to rid the earth of the demons and their oppressive ways.

The stakes are higher than ever, and Anna is determined that the love she feels will be her strength, not a liability. But trying to protect the ones she loves while running for her life and battling demonic forces proves to be perilous—especially as faces are changing and trust is fleeting. When the Duke of Lust sends Anna’s great love, Kaidan Rowe, to work against her, Anna must decide how much she’s prepared to risk.

In the most sensual and fast-paced installment yet, Sweet Reckoning brings all the beloved Neph together one last time to fight for their freedom.

What a perfect ending for such a phenomenal series! I felt every emotion while wrapped up in this whirl-wind ending; Anxiety, hope, sadness, longing, desperation, grief, and lots of love.

Kudos to Wendy Higgins and her brilliant writing! The world she created felt so real and true to life, and who says they aren't? The evil in this world comes from somewhere, but the righteousness prevails.

Kaiden... Oh Kaiden. Wendy Higgins, if I could award you with the sexiest, dreamy-ist, hero bad boy in the teen book history, I would. He won my heart from the first book, the first meeting, but THIS...this puts him on a whole other pedal-stool! My heart broke for him in so many ways.. especially for his self-loathing that he tried so hard to cover up. But the very end... OH.MY.GOSH!! I had tears streaming down my face from the beauty of his soul he was finally allowed to show. I honestly don't know how you could bring so much power into one character, but I am just so undone over Kaiden!!

Most importantly, Higgins stuck to so many wonderful values that are now lost in this world. Especially with Anna's character. If we all could learn that we all have the same kind of power that Anna wielded with her sword of righteousness, the world would be a better place.
This quote explained it all...

"As I acquanted myself with all of him for the first time, I learned the power of being a woman - the weakness in his eyes brought on by my touch - and the underlying trust and love I saw there."

This is the kind of romance we need to see more of. There is so much more to this than all sex-scenes I have read in a long time.

Most would consider the others in the series to be secondary characters, but for me they were so much a part of the whole. Nothing would have been as complete without them and their distinctive personalities.

Wendy Higgins has become one of my top favorite writers! The Sweet Trilogy will be a series I will re-read over and over again!!



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John Dreamer by Elise Celine

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John Dreamer by Elise Celine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Summary:  

Andy wasn’t usually sure about much, but she was absolutely certain this was the weirdest day of her life as she stood stranded in the middle of a great white room with six strangers. Well, they were mostly strangers. She could have sworn she’d seen the guy with the green eyes before, and maybe that was why he kept staring at her.


When a man calling himself the Guardian appeared and said they had come to make their deepest dreams come true, they embark on an adventure none of them ever imagined, and the consequences of their actions would change them forever.

"John Dreamer" is the first in a series of books set in the confines of the Great White Room

Waking up in a great white room not remembering anything, was how this book began. It caught my interest right away. The chairs are what spoke to me the most, even before the others began to arrive. To me it represented the personalities of those to come and exemplified our own uniqueness in the world. I am a person who likes to see beyond the outward appearance of things, places, and people. To me, this white room represented of where we started out in life; An empty slate, a beginning, a place to start. The Guardian who explained that this is where our dreams will come true, meant this is who you become or who you want to be. Only life experiences can make us who we are. In my opinion, this would represent why we are here on earth and how it all plays out. We are here with family, friends and loved ones. As life happens we move forward, we step up or we don't. We help others in their life's struggles and help them become who they are supposed to be, just as others help us in our own times of need. We all grow, become stronger and develop who we want to be, or we fail in certain areas. We never know when these challenges are for our benefit or that of others and we never know when they are going to hit. So to me, symbolism is all over this book. Very Alice in Wonderland-ish, but yet a deep way of thinking of our own lives.

Elise Celine did a great job bringing the characters to life and creating this wonder-land. A very thought-provoking read.

Thanks to Net-Galley for the ARC and the opportunity to read this and I look forward to book #2 in the John Dreamer series!

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The Tyrants Daughter by J.C. Carleson

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The Tyrant's Daughter by J.C. Carleson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Summary: 

From a former CIA officer comes the riveting account of a royal Middle Eastern family exiled to the American suburbs.


When her father is killed in a coup, 15-year-old Laila flees from the war-torn middle east to a life of exile and anonymity in the U.S. Gradually she adjusts to a new school, new friends, and a new culture, but while Laila sees opportunity in her new life, her mother is focused on the past. She’s conspiring with CIA operatives and rebel factions to regain the throne their family lost. Laila can’t bear to stand still as an international crisis takes shape around her, but how can one girl stop a conflict that spans generations?

J.C. Carleson delivers a fascinating account of a girl—and a country—on the brink, and a rare glimpse at the personal side of international politics.*Bonus Backmatter includes a note about the author's CIA past, and a commentary by RAND researcher and president of ARCH International, Dr. Cheryl Benard. Recommendations for further reading are also included.
J.C. Carlson brought a young adult novel and made it into a educational read for all ages. Bringing this into high schools around the country would open up doors and windows into the world of the middle east. Our children would be discussing cultural and political differences, which are HUGE! It would bring a little more understanding and empathy to those who live here in the US as well. Ignorance is what brings hate and fear. Sharing things like this book with our children would educate as well as entertain, but most importantly get them interested in our political world.

Some parts of this book were difficult to read just because of the violence toward women and the reality of the world they live in daily. The main character, Laila, won my heart immediately. Manipulation, bribery, and betrayal were a heartbreaking world to wake up to... being so young and sheltered, then given the freedom to explore and learn truths about her father and mother.

One thing that I admired about Carleson, was she didn't pinpoint a country, or last name to the characters. She made it a generalization yet making it a real place.

I would highly recommend this book to everyone over the age of 14 due to the violence and politics.

Please read this and pass it on! It is a subject that needs to be brought to light, especially to our youth!

Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the ARC of  this book.

Excerpt:

Pretending

My brother is the king of Nowhere.

This fact doesn't matter to anyone except my family- a rapidly shrinking circle of  Used to Be.  And, even for us, there are surprisingly few perks.  And now we sit in our airless apartment, curtains closed against the outside world, pretending.

My Mother pretends that nothing has changed.

She is good at this charade.  Her every gesture oozes money and power now long gone.  They wouldn't let her take her closets full of  designer clothes when we left our country, but she still spends hours on her appearance- pretending that photographers might still want to take pictures of her every outing, even dressed as she is now in J.C. Penny sale-rack clothes and drugstore lipstick.  Pretending her old life didn't die along with my father.


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Podium Finish Blog Tour!

 

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Podium Finish With six months until the Olympic Games, seventeen-year-old Harper's life is pretty much perfect. She's fighting for the starting spot on Team USA Women's Hockey, and for the first time ever, she has a crush on a guy who likes her back. She feels like the luckiest girl in the world, until she runs a risky play at practice and breaks her knee, thereby sentencing herself to six weeks in a cast and possibly ending her Olympic dream before it even starts. For seventeen-year-old Alex, being anything less than the best is unacceptable. That's why, after a miserable debut season at the senior level, the former junior national singles champion switches to ice dance. Her skating partner, Ace, is an "all skating all the time" type of guy, which would be fine, if he'd stop keeping secrets about the real reason he and his former partner broke up. Now is not the time for second thoughts, but how can Alex skate her best if she can’t trust her partner…or herself? As the pressure to make the Olympic team builds, the girls must rely on each other, because if there’s one thing they both know, it's that the only thing harder than skating to the top is staying there.

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My Review

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Let me just say.. Podium Finish was unlike any other book I have read. Pond touched on a subject most YA and teens love, the Olympics. I think every young girl out there has a dream or two of being the beautiful girl in the showy costumes, twirling on the ice. I know I did. Pond caught my interest immediately with the title and the cover! 

Switching point of views between two girls who are roommates, but are in different sports gives this a fun way to see such opposite personalities, but yet both with the same goal... The podium. 

Being a sports fan and having been on a sports team myself, I can relate a little to the competitiveness that comes with a sport like hockey. There were many times when my heart got to pumping while reading about these young girls, Alex and Harper, in action. But the Olympics is so much more than sports. It is years and years of training, sacrifices, determination.... So much determination and hard work to just get to the team itself. The pressure these young teens are put under not only by themselves, but parents, friends and coaches is immense. I was so lost in this, I felt those pressures too. I just wanted to hug and love these roommates who were alone, away from family, having to deal with the pressures of it all.

This was such a great clean read with a little romance. It is so different from most of the YA I have read, it was a breath of fresh air. I am going to get this for my teen boys to read. Especially with the winter Olympics coming up, this will be the icing on the cake!

Check out the Excerpts below the rafflecopter!

  Author Beth Pond Beth Pond graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Hendrix College in 2012. In 2013, she taught in South Africa for 9 months as part of a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship Grant. Pond is currently completing her coursework at the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing MFA program. Her debut novel, Podium Finish, was released from Astraea Press in November 2013. When she’s not writing, Pond enjoys martial arts (she’s a black belt) and serving as a volunteer coach for her brother’s special needs baseball team.  

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  Praise for Podium Finish Podium Finish is unlike any other book I have read, period. It is amazing that Ms. Pond could take two very different characters who are pursuing two completely different sports and tie them together as roommates at the Olympic Training Center. ~Crystal, Books are Sanity This is a great, fun book! This story is really 2 stories in one - bonus! ~Shelley Walker, Goodreads This book was truly enjoyable to read. ~Michele, Amazon Review Podium Finish is one of the best books I have read in a very long time. I couldn't put it down once I started reading it. ~Ana, Amazon Reviewer  

Tour Giveaway $25 Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash Ends 2/9/14 Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader, Not A Writer and sponsored by the author. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.

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Excerpt


Alex

Ace knocks a couple minutes later.


"He-ll-o, Juliet," he says.


"Wrong routine, Genius."


"Oh, that's right. We already kicked butt at that one."


Ace and I are sitting in fifth place, by the narrowest of narrow margins. Lindsay and Cory are behind us in sixth, 1.22 points back.


"Have you ever seen such a narrow margin in the Olympics?"


"No," he says. "That's crazy close, eh?" He sits down on my bed. This is the first time he's been in my room here.


"How'd you know that was my bed?"


"All the pink." He tosses a pillow at me. I brought two of my pillows with me to make this place feel a little more like home — my OTC home, not my Connecticut home. That place hasn't felt like home since I left, maybe even before that.


"Well, make yourself comfortable because we need to talk strategy."


"World domination strategy?"


"Would you stop joking? And yes, if we win the Olympics that would sort of be like world domination."


"Sorry. Jokes are just how I deal with the stress," he says. "I don't know what you want to strategize about. We need to skate as well as we can. Hopefully as well as we did at Nationals. Obviously this is a much bigger competition."


"Okay, what score do you think we'll need to make the podium?"


"At least tie our PB from Nationals to have a chance, but ideally higher. It's gonna be tough, Alex."


"No one ever said winning an Olympic medal would be easy."


"Look, I know you like to de-stress by crunching numbers, but if you try to predict everyone's scores, you're going to drive yourself crazy, lose sleep, and it will all be for nothing, so how about another kind of crunching numbers?"


"Like what?"


He shifts his weight to his side, digging his elbow into the mattress and pulls a deck of cards out of the back pocket of his jeans.


"Poker. If you win, we do a spy routine next year. If I win, it's a western theme."


"Western? What am I going to wear? Daisy Dukes?"


"You better win then."



Harper


We finish a slow lap around the rink then I tell Rye I want to see him speed skate.


"It's more impressive when I'm actually racing people."


"That's okay," I say.


"You just want an excuse to look at my butt."


"No. I'll just race you then if you're going to be like that."


"You'll still have a nice view of my butt."


If I were in 100 percent health, I would have punched him in the arm and bolted off, not caring that his skates are better designed for racing, not to mention the years of experience he has, and I would have raced my heart out, but I'm not in 100 percent health. A dull ache crept its way into my knee on the second turn of our slow lap together. It's not painful. It's the weakness Tyler was talking about, but nevertheless, that ache is a reminder that comebacks are a multistep process.


Rye takes off, crossing his right leg over his left leg to turn the corner of the rink, picking up speed on the straights. When he passes me, a rush of wind follows him. He rounds the first turn again, fingertips brushing the surface of the ice, body at a 45-degree angle, so low to the ice that if it weren't for his speed, he'd fall over, too much speed and he'd fall as well. I stand by the rink wall, and Rye whips by again, purposely getting close to me even though speed skaters normally try to stay as close to the inside of the track as possible.


"Show off!" I call, but he's already coming out of the turn and probably can't hear me.

 

Shadow Allegiance by Lacy Yager

Shadow Allegiance by Lacy Yager
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Summary:  A vampire hunter-turned-vampire seeks to destroy her enemies. Until she falls for one of them.

A Chaser born to kill vampires, sixteen-year-old Rachel Campton has grown up in her older brother's shadow. Until she wakes up a vampire, her own mortal foe. She's stronger, faster than her human self, but haunted by bloodlust and the loss of her beloved younger sister. Friendless and lost in enemy territory, Rachel must rely on Alex Wellington, a former nemesis and centuries old vampire who looks like a college football player.

As Rachel goes deep into vamp territory, she learns there is more to the vampire life than killing humans. She also discovers another side to Alex. He is more than a murderer, he is someone that she starts to fall for. Rachel faces the ultimate choice--her new life and unexpected love or the family she left behind, the family that may now want her dead



First off, when I grabbed this off of NetGalley, I didn't realize it was the second book in a series. I was curious enough to find the first book and read it in order for Shadow Allegiance to make sense. So, my first complaint was that it was not evident enough (to me anyway) from the cover or the description to indicate it was a sequel.

Other than being a little frustrated having to find the first book, I enjoyed them both. They both were a quick enough read that I was able to plow right through both of them in no time. That being said, I think I would have liked a little more to each book. Especially the endings. It seemed things just came together too quickly and the romances were too quick to be believable.

The writing was done well, and the action was great! I immediately fell into the plot and picked my favorites quickly. I am all for books with different POV. Especially between heroine and hero, but in this book, there were too many to keep track. Trying to keep up with 3 of 4 became a chore when jumping between 3 different scenes that never seemed to come together completely. I realize that they all will come together eventually, in a different book in the series, but I still felt cheated out of one of the scenes.

This was a great clean read with no foul language and no sex scenes. Just some kissing. I would say it would be a great read for anyone over the age of 12.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the chance to review this book.

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