If the characters from Merlin ever met the Sorting Hat. INTER-TEXTUALITY BOMB!!!!
Also, if this is not THE TOTAL TRUTH, I don’t know what is. Seriously.
Book Review | Fracture | Megan Miranda
Jan 14
I received this book for free from BookExpo in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Fracture by Megan Miranda Series: Fracture #1
Published by Walker Children's on January 17, 2012
Genres: Contemporary YA
Pages: 262
Format: ARC
Source: BookExpo
Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Goodreads
Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine–despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she’s far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can’t control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?
Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she’s reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy’s motives aren’t quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature-or something much more frightening?
Busting the Newbie Blues
Jan 12
Hey, Baby Blogger! How YOU Doin’?
Starting a blog can be lots of things all at once: exciting, nerve-wracking, time-consuming, confusing, and overwhelming. But for me, even when it was–IS–some or all of those things, it’s always something I look forward to, and I’m eager to do MORE. But it’s all about learning as you go, and that’s both good and bad sometimes.
Thankfully, the lovely folks over at Small Review are hosting this Busting the Newbie Blues event to get both baby bloggers and more established bloggers talking about the 5 Ws: who, what, when, where, and why. This is such a great event! You can check out more here.
Book Review | Icefall | Matthew J. Kirby
Jan 11
I received this book for free from BookExpo in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby Published by Scholastic on October 1, 2011
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Middle Grade, Vikings
Pages: 324
Format: ARC
Source: BookExpo
Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Goodreads
Trapped in a hidden fortress tucked between towering mountains and a frozen sea, Solveig, along with her brother the crown prince, their older sister, and an army of restless warriors, anxiously awaits news of her father’s victory at battle. But as winter stretches on, and the unending ice refuses to break, terrible acts of treachery soon make it clear that a traitor lurks in their midst. A malevolent air begins to seep through the fortress walls, and a smothering claustrophobia slowly turns these prisoners of winter against one another.
Those charged with protecting the king’s children are all suspect, and the siblings must choose their allies wisely. But who can be trusted so far from their father’s watchful eye? Can Solveig and her siblings survive the long winter months and expose the traitor before he succeeds in destroying a kingdom?
Waiting on Wednesday (9): Enchanted
Jan 11
Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly feature hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. I love it because it is basically a squee-fest where book lovers can choose one book that they are DYING to get their hands on. Check it out!
Enchanted
by Alethea Kontis
It isn’t easy being the rather overlooked and unhappy youngest sibling to sisters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday’s only comfort is writing stories, although what she writes has a terrible tendency to come true.
When Sunday meets an enchanted frog who asks about her stories, the two become friends. Soon that friendship deepens into something magical. One night Sunday kisses her frog goodbye and leaves, not realizing that her love has transformed him back into Rumbold, the crown prince of Arilland—and a man Sunday’s family despises.
The prince returns to his castle, intent on making Sunday fall in love with him as the man he is, not the frog he was. But Sunday is not so easy to woo. How can she feel such a strange, strong attraction for this prince she barely knows? And what twisted secrets lie hidden in his past—and hers?
I love the sound of ENCHANTED. It reminds me a little bit of Juliet Marillier’s WILDWOOD DANCING with the frog and the princess (or, in this case, it appears to just be a girl from a powerful family?) angle, which is excellent. BUT THEN! Business takes a turn into ROMEO & JULIET-ville (hopefully without the whole “Let’s both die together” part) when the newly de-frogged prince and the girl turn out to be from two families who hate each other’s guts. DRAMA!
Seriously though. ENCHANTED sounds fantastic. I LOVE this spin on The Frog Prince story, which, like all fairy tales, usually ends with the frog returned to his princely form whereupon the princess is immediately in love with him. I’m excited to read a version of events that requires a little more effort and creates more tension. PLUS. What about those “twisted secrets,” huh? What’s THAT about?? Can’t wait for this one, guys.
ENCHANTED is coming out May 8, 2012 from Harcourt Children’s.
Top Ten Tuesday (9)
Jan 10
Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Authors I Wish Would Write Another Book
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. It’s awesome. Every Tuesday, the lovely folks over at The Broke and the Bookish post a top ten list topic so that book lovers like you and me can pour over our shelves and make our own lists. You can check out all the other Top Ten Tuesday‘s on their site!
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Book Review | Cinder | Marissa Meyer
Jan 9
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Cinder by Marissa Meyer Series: The Lunar Chronicles #1
Published by Feiwel & Friends on January 3, 2012
Genres: Dystopian YA, Science Fiction, Young Adult
Pages: 390
Format: eARC
Also in this series: Scarlet, Cinder, Cress, Fairest
Also by this author: Scarlet, Cinder, Cress, Fairest
Source: the publisher via NetGalley
Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Goodreads
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .
Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.
In My Mailbox (9)
Jan 7
January 8, 2012
In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi over at The Story Siren. It’s awesome. Every week, we all get a chance to tell everyone what new books we’ve gotten so that we can tell you guys and we can all drool and squee together! Huzzah for squees!
After last week’s avalanche of books, things were pretty quiet over here this week. Which is…not all bad! I’m drowning over here, guys! DROWNING!! (I’d rather drown in books than anything else, though, so I’m dealing.)
FROM NETGALLEY
Jersey Angel, by Beth Ann Bauman (May 8, 2012 from Wendy Lamb Books). Summer at the Jersey Shore. Ahh, good times. Guys, I will ALWAYS read books about Jersey. I could never leave them flapping out there in the breeze; I’d feel like a traitor. But this one sounds good, with doses of relationship drama and uncertainty about the future after high school.
Lies Beneath: Lies Beneath, book 1, by Anne Greenwood Brown (June 12, 2012 from Delacorte).HOLY BANANAS, murderous mermaids in the Great Lakes?! This is awesome if only because I always associate mermaids with salt water. (Is it weird that this was my first thought? “Wait. They live in fresh water?”)In all seriousness, though, this one sounds really good: Drama, the pressures of familial duties, MERMAIDS, revenge, falling for the wrong person. The recipe for awesome.
The Demon Lover: The Fairwick Chronicles, book 1, by Juliet Dark (December 27, 2011 from Random House). Guys, I had no idea that this wasn’t a YA book until recently. But that doesn’t diminish my interest in reading it, especially when the Goodreads synopsis features the phrase “erotic dream” right there up top. In fact, the synopsis HEAVILY indicates sexytimes, which is exciting but also makes me nervous: that’s HIGH expectations. But I really am intrigued with paranormal stories for adults. Admittedly, my experience with titles like this one is limited, but for some reason, it’s sometimes easier for me to swallow TEENS being with vamps/werewolves/angels/beasties/demons/ghosts/etc. than adults.
FROM THE LIBRARY
The Survival Kit, by Donna Freitas (October 11, 2011 from Farrar, Straus and Giroux). I meant to read this book awhile ago, but never got around to it. My library came through for me again, though, so here it is. This book sounds heartbreaking and emotional and life-affirming, so I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been SLAYED by cancer books lately, though, so I need to mentally and emotionally prepare myself. (I’m looking at you through my tears, The Probability of Miracles.)
That’s it for me this week, friends. Did you guys get anything awesome in your mailboxes this week?
Book Review | Uncommon Criminals | Ally Carter
Jan 6
Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter Series: Heist Society #2
Published by Disney Hyperion on June 21, 2011
Genres: Adventure, Contemporary YA, Thieves
Pages: 298
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Goodreads
Katarina Bishop has worn a lot of labels in her short life life. Friend. Niece. Daughter. Thief. But for the last two months she’s simply been known as the girl who ran the crew that robbed the greatest museum in the world. That’s why Kat isn’t surprised when she’s asked to steal the infamous Cleopatra Emerald so it can be returned to its rightful owners.
There are only three problems. First, the gem hasn’t been seen in public in thirty years. Second, since the fall of the Egyptian empire and the suicide of Cleopatra, no one who holds the emerald keeps it for long, and in Kat’s world, history almost always repeats itself. But it’s the third problem that makes Kat’s crew the most nervous and that is simply… the emerald is cursed.
Kat might be in way over her head, but she’s not going down without a fight. After all she has her best friend—the gorgeous Hale—and the rest of her crew with her as they chase the Cleopatra around the globe, dodging curses, realizing that the same tricks and cons her family has used for centuries are useless this time.
Which means, this time, Katarina Bishop is making up her own rules.
Oooh, Pretty!: Seraphina
Jan 5
Seraphina
by Rachel Hartman
So, when did THIS happen?! I’m SO STOKED about Rachel Hartman’s debut, and this cover is so old-school gorgeous that it’s turning my excitement up to 11. PLUS, according to Rachel herself, the cover is actually a FOR REAL woodblock print. Like, someone carved this awesome into a piece of wood LIKE A CHAMP and then the cover geniuses made a print of it. WORD. I’m done talking now.
Aaaaaaaannnnnnd…BOOM.
SERAPHINA is coming out on July 10, 2012 from Random House Books for Young Readers.
