Mark This Book Monday: ARC Review of Athena's Ashes by Jamie Grey!!

Hello everyone!

Once again the blog has been a bit silent this weekend but I've been rather busy with preparations and travelling and meeting people and playing guide and... really have barely had any time to blog (or sleep all that either!) So today the blog is back on track and (hopefully) it will continue for the rest of the week!

To start the week right, the first entry for Mark This Book Monday is one of those sequels that don't disappoint and not only you love them, they leave you really looking forward to the next book!

Since I got an ARC of this one from the author in exchange for an honest review, I'm counting this one for my 2014 Review Pile Reading Challenge!

Athena's Ashes by Jamie Grey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've always been a big fan of science fiction so trilogy by Jamie Grey was appealing since I heard about book one (that I loved) and this one that is book 2 hasn't disappointed me either! Btw, thanks a lot for the ARC Jamie!

After the cliffhanger of book 1, not a horrible one but a cliffhanger nonetheless, I was really looking forward to read this one! It starts pretty much where Star Thief left us, with Renna in the care (and custody) of MYTH, while Finn and the Athena's crew have gone on the run.

This book has all the awesome things of science fiction like the obvious one of ships and stellar traveling and adventures and high stakes and ethical dilemmas about science and progress and humanity.

Renna continues to be a great main character, continually growing and trying to find out what she really wants to do, surprising herself when she finds herself doing things she wouldn't have done some time back and even when there's romance and a love interest, she doesn't really lose the sigh of what must be done, even when her subconscious betrays her in a biiiig way (not telling you want I mean with that, but it surprised me and I had a ball with that!).

I was rather surprised when the villain was revealed, because somehow I was not expecting it to be who it really was, and I won't be saying anymore cause I don't want to spoil it for anyone else! It was quite nice to see how a villain could be hidden in plain sight that way, that's all I'm saying!

There's a lot of action in this book, betrayal, unexpected meetings, a race against time for more than one reason and there's also romance. This is a NA book after all, so expect mature situations, so to speak! Very well done and with a great relationship starting to build up. Tension & difficulties but thankfully no love triangle at all!

There was a great build up to the final confrontation with deception, pain and rising stakes and I couldn't keep turning the pages fast enough, hoping that I was right about something very spoilery (I was!) and then we got a fantastic resolution with an ending that is a cliffhanger again of sorts but not the horrible one that leaves you mad and feeling like throwing the book away, but the kind that makes you go "Oooooooooh!!!" and "gimme more, I want to know what happens next!"

A very very well deserving 4 to 4.5 stars book, I know that whatever Jamie writes next, I want to read it!



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Friday Reads: ARC Review of First World Problems by LeighAnn Kopans!!

Hello guys! Happy Friday!

I hope you guys have had a good week, mine managed to improve little by little, and now you're ready for Friday and the weekend, I know I am!

Yesterday I skipped a Thursday post cause I was busy baking and cooking and preparing for a Desi Bollywood party I'm having with my friends later today, might share some photos here on Sunday!

Today's entry for Friday Reads is for a book that released this week and that you should all go check out and buy! It's become another of my fave contemporaries of the year, and you guys know I'm not very keen on contemporaries! And keep an eye on my Twitter over the weekend, there might be a giveaway coming too!

As I got the ARC from the author for an honest review, this one also counts for my 2014 Review Pile Reading Challenge!

First World Problems by LeighAnn Kopans

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Loved this one! Perfect comfort read that made me feel happier about things and this awful world sometimes!

I'm not the biggest contemporary fan, as I keep saying over and over, but I keep finding lil gems here and there that make me realize I might not love the genre, but I need to keep giving it a try.

First World Problems is a companion novel to Solving For Ex, one of my fave contemporaries of the year, so when I got the chance to get an ARC for this one sent by the author (thanks LeighAnn!) I jumped at it!

We first met Sofia in Solving For Ex and she was not a nice or sympathetic character, she's the one you love to hate, and she hasn't really improved much by the time we meet her again in this book, but since this is her story, we get to see what's behind that mean girl face of hers.

It all starts with Sofia going a bit overboard with a credit card (a bit = waaay too much) and her father decides that he needs to put a stop to her selfishness and sense of entitlement, so between him and his wife (Sophia's stepmom) they decide to send her to Guyana, to do community service work to help the people there into sustainable development in very dire situations.

It goes without saying, she rages, cajoles and tries every trick in her book to avoid it, but there is sent to the middle of the jungle to join a group of young people trying to make a difference.

The character development of Sofia during this book was fantastic! We meet her at first and we know she's the spoiled and entitled brat from the previous book and we're glad to see her dumped into a tough place and hope she'll be taught a lesson. And she does get her lesson and we also get one, in character development, cause from a character that I couldn't stand, little by little I was give a character I wanted to peel layers from and a character I wanted to cheer for and finally a character to feel proud of!

I loved the other characters in the book, Callum and Arielle and Lena. They were all quite well rounded up and I couldn't help but love the hate to truce to love between Callum and Sofia, and the way she found friends in Arielle and Lena, despite each others reservations.

Another thing that I loved and really made the book work for me was how realistic the whole setting of Guyana felt and read. You just feel like you are there, from the latrines, to the chicken of the trees to the shit flinging! I loved the descriptions of the treks through the jungle, the work in the gardens, the indian style cooking, the preparation of handmade cosmetics... And add to that the lovely drawings scattered through the book (not in the ARC, but yes in the finished copy) and you get yourself a fantastic and vivid setting.

If you loved contemporaries, you must add this one to your list and if you don't, give it a try, it might surprise you! Still a bit undecided between 4 to 4.5 stars, but planning a re-read already!



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Waiting On Wednesday #58!!

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly feature hosted at Breaking The Spine  that spotlights those can't-wait-to-get-my-hands-on-them books that we are eagerly awaiting!

Well, this week I'm biting my nails awaiting the release of Jackaby by William Ritter!!

Goodreads Summary:

"“Miss Rook, I am not an occultist,” Jackaby said. “I have a gift that allows me to see truth where others see the illusion--and there are many illusions. All the world’s a stage, as they say, and I seem to have the only seat in the house with a view behind the curtain.”

Newly arrived in New Fiddleham, New England, 1892, and in need of a job, Abigail Rook meets R. F. Jackaby, an investigator of the unexplained with a keen eye for the extraordinary--including the ability to see supernatural beings. Abigail has a gift for noticing ordinary but important details, which makes her perfect for the position of Jackaby’s assistant. On her first day, Abigail finds herself in the midst of a thrilling case: A serial killer is on the loose. The police are convinced it’s an ordinary villain, but Jackaby is certain it’s a nonhuman creature, whose existence the police--with the exception of a handsome young detective named Charlie Cane--deny.

Doctor Who meets Sherlock in William Ritter’s debut novel, which features a detective of the paranormal as seen through the eyes of his adventurous and intelligent assistant in a tale brimming with cheeky humor and a dose of the macabre."


Why am I eagerly awaiting Jackaby? Well when I first heard it was described as a mix of Sherlock with Doctor Who, I was completely sold! Add to that some very positive reviews from some of my canaries and I'm dying to get my hands on this one!

What are you all (im)patiently awaiting this week?

Tell Me Tuesdays #10!!

Tell Me Tuesdays is a meme/feature created by the awesome ladies of Please Feed The Bookworm and La La In The Library where we can share how we choose the book we are currently reading from our TBR pile!

I'm always curious about that, cause as much as I tend to make myself a rough schedule for books to read and the like, I'm quite a mood reader and sometimes I just HAVE to ignore my schedule and read something else!

Lailah by Nikki Kelly


The girl knows she’s different. She doesn’t age. She has no family. She has visions of a past life, but no clear clues as to what she is, or where she comes from. But there is a face in her dreams – a light that breaks through the darkness. She knows his name is Gabriel.

On her way home from work, the girl encounters an injured stranger whose name is Jonah. Soon, she will understand that Jonah belongs to a generation of Vampires that serve even darker forces. Jonah and the few like him, are fighting with help from an unlikely ally – a rogue Angel, named Gabriel.

In the crossfire between good and evil, love and hate, and life and death, the girl learns her name: Lailah. But when the lines between black and white begin to blur, where in the spectrum will she find her place? And with whom?

Gabriel and Jonah both want to protect her. But Lailah will have to fight her own battle to find out who she truly is.


When I first saw Lailah around I wasn't very sure about it, but then I met Nikki, the author, on Twitter and she's the sweetest person ever, and then the reviews for it from some of my canaries like Octavia from Read, Sleep, Repeat and Crystal, made me super intrigued! I have been dying to get my hands on an ARC of it for a long while and thanks to Nikki herself and Danny from Bewitched Bookworms, now I DO!! Thank you!

So what are you all guys reading and how and why did you decide to pick up that book? Shiny new ARC? Comfort read? Scheduled for review? Must have new release? Tell me!!

 

Cover Reveal With Xpresso Book Tours: One Song Away by Molli Moran!!

Hello guys!

Today I'm very pleased to be part of the cover reveal for Molli Moran's next book, organized by Xpresso Book Tours!


Before I let you see the pretty pretty cover designed by Marie Landry, I'm gonna tell you all about the book and about Molli herself!

One Song Away by Molli Moran
Publication date: December 2014
Genres: New Adult, Romance

Synopsis:

She needs a fill-in boyfriend. He needs a favor. It's the perfect, no-strings arrangement -- until they both realize it's too real...

Sophie-Claire Wright's life is like a bad country song on repeat. She keeps running into her cheating ex, her songwriting career isn't taking off, and to make matters worse, her roommate just kicked her out of their apartment. With nothing to lose, she decides to do the one thing she said she'd never do: she moves back home. She left her small Southern town with big dreams, but now she's going home with empty pockets.

Life moves at a slower pace in Sophie’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hometown, but her well-meaning, matchmaking mother doesn't have a slow gear. She invents a boyfriend to hold off her mother's efforts, but she’s out of luck when her mom wants to meet Sophie’s boyfriend. Sophie panics until she runs into Jake Cooper. Her high school crush is back in town, too, and when he asks her for a favor, she agrees -- on one condition. He says he'll be her fill-in boyfriend, so it should be simple: introduce him to her family and then "break up" with him after a few weeks.

Sophie is sure she'll be able to resist Jake this time and that their fake relationship will keep them both away from wagging tongues. Just because she was in love with him years ago doesn't mean she'll fall for him again now, right? But she didn't bargain for moments that feel all too genuine. Dates that don't seem fake. And she didn't count on old feelings resurfacing and complicating their arrangement —- which is starting to feel less like acting and more like the real deal.

Soon, Sophie can't tell which kisses are real or fake -- but she knows she's in deep. When she gets a chance to go back to Nashville and chase her dreams again, she has a choice to make: stay or go? Continue hoping that the life she wants is one song away, or write her own? 

Intrigued enough? Wanna see the gorgeous cover now??

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About the author:

 

Molli is a Southern writer who doesn't consider her day complete if she hasn't written. She loves coffee and talking fast, things she attributes to being raised by Gilmore Girls. She's a romantic at heart, and brings that to her books. When not reading or blogging, she can be found obsessing over Doctor Who, cuddling her various pets, or spending time with friends, family, or her girlfriend. 

Website | Blog | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook

Mark This Book Monday: Linked by Imogen Howson!!

Hey guys! Happy Monday and welcome to September!

Are any of you as surprised, panicky and overwhelmed at how fast the summer has passed?? I feel like the days have blurred into each other!

I took a lil break from blogging during the weekend cause I was feeling very much on edge and not at my best emotionally and I needed the lil breather, so I'm a bit late posting the review for my August book from my Alyssa Recommends list!

Better late than never, here it is as my Mark This Book Monday entry of this week!



Linked by Imogen Howson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Science fiction will always probably be my first literary love, and Linked is one of those science fiction stories that I love! This one came highly recommended by Alyssa from The Eater of Books and it part of her Alyssa Recommends list!

We start the book with Elissa trying to find help in a new doctor to find out what's been wrong with her in the last 3 years and to find a way to fix her. She's so willing to get rid of her allucinations and unexplained pains and bruises that she even overlooks some stuff that make her alarms ping during the visit, getting her surgery scheduled in 4 days. Then we see her get to what's now her normal life of dreading the pain and visions and being shunned by her peers.

It was a necessary beginning and it really showed Elissa's personality and motivations but it felt a bit odd for me, mostly cause I wasn't sure where the book was going yet and even though this is a very good thing, even if I had a hunch about what part of the mystery might be about early on, I had no idea what was gonna happen or how. Then things started happening and the action started moving even if we get very few answers and many more new questions once Lissa meets Lin.

The dynamics between these two are very interesting, since Lissa feels responsible for Lin, given that she's her twin and she's been suffering horrible experiences (the ones she had been experiencing in the shape of pains and bruises) but also she doesn't know Lin and she's a bit scared of the unknown and the different and Lin is very much both, even if both wear the same face.

Aside from the action, we get quite an nice world building about Sekoia and the colonization of planets and space flight that we find peppered throughout the book, never too much exposition to make it feel like info-dump, but always enough to hint at things and to make us see and understand better what world is this one we're in, and the kind of mentality and mind frame the people in this planet have.

One of the most important themes treated in this book for me was the whole twin, human, non-human and sub-human. It was fantastically presented and explained and how it was compared with cloning and how it was shown once again that by making people think in terms of "us" anf "them" and labelling someone as "non-human" for whatever reason, some people will be prejudiced enough to believe their prejudices and not the evidence before them.

I was quite disgusted with the human race at more than one point in this book, even if it's science fiction and it hasn't happend and it might never happen, but unfortunately I don't see it being so impossible to happen. We've got plenty of examples of what collateral means and how money, power and the interest of those with money and power can be more important than human lives, so imagine those considered "sub-human"?.

The first half of the book was okay, Lissa did get a little on my nerves on occasion with how naive she was, and Lin creeped me out with how intense she was. But the second half of the book was so much better, full of interesting ethical topics raised, action non-stop with raised stakes and even a bit of romance thrown in (nothing like life or death situations to decide that enough is enough and you ought not keep things hidden not even from yourself anymore!).

Then ending was more of the quiet kind, not a big confrontation, but there had been plenty of surprises and revelations in the pages coming up to the final ones and it doesn't end with a horrible cliffhanger which is very much welcome! The ending is open enough to make you want to read the next but doesn't leave you hanging painfully! Well deserved 4 stars!



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Friday Reads: Mortal Danger by Ann Aguirre!!

Aaaand welcome to the final entry to this week's Friday Reads!

This book has taken me a bit to finish reading, not because I wasn't enjoying it but mostly cause I needed to take a break now and then from its glorious creepiness and cause I wanted to read as much of it during daylight hours as possible, something I failed at, cause I read the last 35% of it and probably the creepiest bits after work and dinner last night!

I've also discovered I really need to read more Ann Aguirre books cause I've loved all three of her books I've read so far!



Mortal Danger by Ann Aguirre

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Mortal Danger is a book that doesn't really hold any punches back. I'm still a bit shellshocked after everything that happened in this book and I'm really impressed with how it juggled tough contemporary themes like bullying and mixes it with a rich and creepy world of hidden power plays in a paranormal world.

Edit has suffered an extremely upsetting and enraging case of bullying from her peers for years at this exclusive high school, and that along with the way some of the adults around her dealt with it, making her feel it was her fault, drove her to the jumpers' bridge, ready to put an end to her suffering. But a beautiful stranger approaches her and offers her a better alternative, a way to change her life that means not having to give up but means a chance to getting back at her tormentors.

Edit seizes it, and even in her despair and immense sadness, she manages to keep her head and not walk into the deal completely blinded. She will find herself a bit way over her head, but she will not stop fighting and that's what makes her such a great survivor. She tries to get out of her older skin, try to shake her fearful and humiliated old self, and with her deal done, she takes a new leaf and tries to become a new person and get her revenge. But soon revenge takes a back seat with all the paranormal and inexplicable stuff happening around her, and she realizes that revenge might not be exactly what she wants anymore, not the way things start happening.

Kian is a character that I wasn't entirely sure about at first, but despite Edit's reasonable doubts I was sure quite early that he really was on her side, despite his tendency to keep secrets to protect her, which is a trait that I don't appreciate much in characters. No matter what, they're chemistry was great and I loved those moments that were about just them together and that they really learn to make a great team, relaying in one another.

One thing this book exceeded at was being creepy as hell. SO many creepy characters and moments would jump at you unexpectedly and would make me shiver and pause while reading (full disclosure, yes, I'm a wuss, but this book is very creepy!!) and now that I'm done with the book, I'm a bit afraid of going to sleep and having some nightmares, cause the descriptions and the ambience of the book were so vivid and creepy!

And another thing that was wonderfully done and that I've treasured every tidbit was the amazing mythology built around this paranormal creatures and happenings and the deals done in exchange of saving someone from death. I won't be getting much into it, but I found it so fascinating that I cannot wait to meet more characters and get more in-depth with it!

Be sure to be prepared to many many ups and downs with this book and remember that no one is safe and always wait for the other shoe to drop, cause holy hell does it fall! A fantastic book very much deserving of 4.5 stars!



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Friday Reads: Mini Review of Summerfall by Claire Legrand!!

Hello guys! Happy Friday and welcome to another edition of Friday Reads!

This week I'm failing a bit at reading, but since I've only had one day and a half off and I had to get ready an order of cupcakes, I feel like I can be dispensed... I am trying to catch up now, and hopefully during the weekend!

I'm starting with a mini review for a prequel novella that I adored and really made me look forward to the full lenght book!



Summerfall: A Winterspell Novella by Claire Legrand

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


When I first heard of this prequel novella for Winterspell, I preordered it as soon as it was up for it on Amazon. Then I got approved via Edelweiss for Winterspell and I kept wondering if I should read it or wait for the novella, and in the decided to wait. And it turns out it was the right choice!

Summerfall is a prequel and as such we are introduced to the world of Cane and to characters that won't probably be in Winterspell, but we are given and insight into the events that shaped what will be going on in the book and we are introduced both to the world of Cane and to Claire Legrand's quite beautiful writing!

Summerfall is the story of Rinka, a naive and sheltered faery that has a fascination for humans in a world were the relationships between both races are not at the best of times. She believes in understanding and getting to know each other to destroy prejudice and restore peace. She finds her chance to meet with the humans and try to work towards peace and soon realizes things are not that easy and soon her life and probably the entire realm's change.

Rinka is a wonderful character that starts as really naive but soon learns that she's way in over her head, but I loved that she never backed down, she took challenges on ahead and wanted to work for peace, even when the road was tough. That she might just loose her head for love and risked everything might seem silly, but it could be seen as another way to show that peace between the two races was possible, if love could be found.

The treachery of power and politics taking advantage of the differences between people and the fear that can generate is nothing now, and seeing it at play in Cane is a dire reminder we'd all do well in taking to heart. Facing the consequences of our choices and not shruging away from responsabilities are also themes explored in this novella.

Quite some strong themes, a good foundation to the world of Cane, well developed characters and a really swoony romance all mixed up make this novella a must read! Now I cannot wait to read Winterspell! Well deserved 4 stars!



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