The Musings of ALMYBNENR

Review: The Goddess Inheritance by Aimée Carter

Mon, 20 May 2013 07:00:27 -0400

Disclaimer: No spoilers from The Goddess Inheritance but read with caution if you have not read The Goddess Test, The Goddess Hunt, Goddess Interrupted, and The Goddess Legacy!

Kate Winters passed the goddess tests, traveled the world, learned her duties, and survived Calliope’s physical and emotional attacks…at least until Cronus, the king of the Titans got involved. Calliope unleashed the most evil plan to tear Kate and Henry apart while allowing Cronus to take care of the rest of the gods. It has been nine months since Kate was kidnapped and her pregnancy is nearing its end. Stuck with Cronus and Calliope, she knows that Cronus will let her keep her child and leave the human race alone if she stands by his side and forsakes the rest of her family while Calliope stands by her own vow of taking Kate’s child away from her. Torn in all directions, Kate has to figure out a way to appease Cronus while still keeping humanity and her family safe as well as finding a way around all of Calliope’s evil concoctions.

The end of Goddess, Interrupted was high with intensity and that was how The Goddess Inheritance began and even followed through: with extreme intensity that kept me on the edge of my seat. Kate was torn between what was best for her child and Henry and between the strong wills of Cronus and Calliope, both of whom had varying agendas. During the process, Kate learned more about her personal abilities and her new powers as a goddess. She also did everything she could think of to obtain a possible outcome that included the survival of everyone she loved.

If, like me, you are invested in this trilogy, definitely expect waterworks towards the end because there was loss and heartbreak. I was teary-eyed and sad, but also angry, muck like Kate had been throughout The Goddess Inheritance.

I really, really want more Goddess books from Carter. I felt that there was an opening there at the end for a possible continuation somewhere down the line and I hope Carter goes back to these characters in a few years, whether it be through more novellas or a full update.

Recommended for fans of mythology and of Carter’s trilogy. This is a good trilogy to read if you are a fan of Josephine Angelini’s mythological trilogy.

Aimée Carter hails from and resides in Michigan. She attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and received a degree in Screen Arts and Cultures with a concentration in Screenwriting. She enjoys reading, watching movies, and writing as well as spending time with her two Papillon dogs. She is the author of The Goddess Test, The Goddess Hunt, Goddess Interrupted, The Goddess Legacy, and The Goddess Inheritance.

Website │ Blog │ Goodreads │ Facebook │ Twitter

Buy on: Amazon │ The Book Depository │ Books-A-Million

Guest Post: Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens by Barbara Kyle (Blood Between Queens Virtual Book Tour)

Wed, 15 May 2013 06:00:34 -0400

About Blood Between Queens

Publication Date: April 30, 2013
Kensington Publishing
Paperback; 448p
ISBN: 0758273223

Following her perilous fall from a throne she’d scarcely owned to begin with, Mary, Queen of Scots, has fled to England, hoping her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, will grant her asylum. But now Mary has her sights on the English crown, and Elizabeth enlists her most trusted subjects to protect it.

Justine Thornleigh is delighting in the thrill of Queen Elizabeth’s visit to her family’s estate when the festivities are cut short by Mary’s arrival. To Justine’s surprise, the Thornleighs appoint her to serve as a spy in Mary’s court. But bearing the guise of a lady-in-waiting is not Justine’s only secret. The weight of her task is doubled by fears of revealing to her fiancé that she is in truth the daughter of his family’s greatest rival. Duty-bound, Justine must sacrifice love as she navigates a deadly labyrinth of betrayal that could lead to the end of Elizabeth’s fledgling reign…

Compelling and inventive, Blood Between Queens artfully blends history’s most intriguing figures with unforgettable characters, bringing to dazzling life the fascinating Tudor era.

Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens

Should we act from the head or from the heart? Deliberation or passion? In Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility the Dashwood sisters personify this choice in matters of love.

When it comes to ruling a country, with stakes infinitely higher, two queens have immortalized the crucial head-or-heart divide, and they feature in my new novel Blood Between Queens. Elizabeth I of England acted with careful deliberation, keeping her ambitious nobles in line and her kingdom safe from foreign attack during a peaceful reign of over forty years. Her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, followed her passions throughout her seven-year reign, making impetuous decisions that fomented a civil war in which she gambled her kingdom on the battlefield, and lost.

For over four hundred years their story has enthralled the world. It still does.

Mary fled to England to escape the Protestant lords who had deposed her, and begged Elizabeth for an army to fight them. But Elizabeth needed Protestant Scotland as a bulwark against possible invasion by Catholic France or Spain, so she kept keep Mary under house arrest - a captivity, though comfortable, that lasted nineteen years. During it Mary plotted ceaselessly to overthrow Elizabeth and take her crown, and when the last plot almost succeeded, Elizabeth executed her.

The head-or-heart divide that characterized these two queens stemmed partly from their very different upbringing. Mary was sent to France at the age of five to join the French king’s family in preparation for marriage to his heir, Francis, and grew up in the most glittering court in Europe, petted and loved by the French royal family. She married Francis when both were in their teens, and when his father died a year later he became king. Queen of France at sixteen, Mary had little to do but please and pamper herself.

Elizabeth’s childhood, on the other hand, was one of uncertainty and fear. Her father, Henry VIII, beheaded her mother, Anne Boleyn, when Elizabeth was three. Then he disinherited Elizabeth. When she was twenty-one her half-sister Mary took the throne and sent Elizabeth to the Tower where she expected to be executed. But Mary died four years later and Elizabeth became queen. In those perilous years she had learned to watch and wait, and never to act rashly.

It was a lesson Mary Queen of Scots never learned. When her French royal husband died she returned to Scotland at eighteen to take up her birthright as its queen, and there she fell in love with a dashing English nobleman, Lord Darnley. Impulsively, she married him.

This splintered her nobles into factions, creating a simmering civil war. Mary bore a son, James, but her marriage quickly soured when she found that Darnley was a wastrel and a drunk. She turned to a tough military man, the Earl of Bothwell, and there was gossip they were lovers. One cold February night the house Darnley was sleeping in was blown up, killing him. Bothwell was accused of Darnley’s murder and stood trial, but was acquitted. Three months later, Mary took Bothwell as her third husband. Her people suspected her of colluding with him to murder Darnley, and turned against her.

Elizabeth, famously, never married. She knew that if she did her husband would be considered king, eclipsing her power and creating warring factions. Her decision to remain single brought her considerable personal anguish. She was heard to say, when Mary’s son was born, that she envied Mary the baby “while I am barren stock.” But she knew her decision was wise. Elizabeth loved her people, and often said that they were her family. They loved her in return.

Mary is to be pitied. Kept captive for nineteen years, she was eventually beheaded at Elizabeth’s order. But it was her disastrous, impetuous leadership decisions that led to her downfall. If peace, prosperity, and international respect are the fruits of successful leadership, the cautious Elizabeth remains one of England’s greatest leaders.

Thank you, Barbara!

About the Author

Barbara Kyle is the author of the acclaimed Tudor-era “Thornleigh” novels Blood Between Queens, The Queen’s Gamble, The Queen’s Captive, The King’s Daughter and The Queen’s Lady which follow a rising middle-class family through three tumultuous Tudor reigns. She also writes contemporary thrillers. Over 400,000 copies of her books have been sold in seven countries. In July 2013 Barbara will be a speaker at Ontario’s world-renowned Stratford Festival with her talk “Elizabeth and Mary, Rival Queens: A Study of Leadership Lost and Won” about the cousin-queens Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots featured in Blood Between Queens.

Barbara has taught writers at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies and is known for her dynamic workshops for many writers organizations and conferences. Before becoming an author Barbara enjoyed a twenty-year acting career in television, film, and stage productions in Canada and the US.

For more information, please visit Barbara Kyle’s WEBSITE.

Buy on: Amazon │ The Book Depository │ Books-A-Million

Related post:

Review: The Queen’s Lady

Review: The Savage Blue by Zoraida Córdova (The Savage Blue Blog Tour) + Giveaway

Sun, 12 May 2013 01:40:00 -0400

Disclaimer: No spoilers from The Savage Blue, but read with caution if you have not read The Vicious Deep!

A lot has happened since Tristan Hart learned that he was a merman and the son of the Sea King. He met tons of merpeople and other fantastical creatures, including an oracle, he was plagued in his dreams by Nieve, the crazy sea witch with the shark teeth, who also sent her deformed creatures to attack Tristan and his friends…he even lost one of his good friends in all of the chaos.

And the chaos only continues to grow as Tristan searches for the remaining trident pieces and realizes that he must pool the resources around him. But instead of gaining, he stands to lose through multiple betrayals and everything comes down to one choice: pursue the kingship or pursue Layla.

When The Savage Blue began, it quickly became apparent that only two weeks had passed since the end of The Vicious Deep. Zoraida Córdova sucked me back into her wonderful Coney Island and underwater worlds – so much so that I barely paused and remembered to take any notes while I was reading. Córdova really brought to life something special with these books and with Tristan Hart, a super well-written and realistic male character. I loved his personality and humor and his flaws.

Tristan still had his sarcastic humor that lightened up even the direst of moments and things between him and his best friend Layla have heated up to entice and tease themselves and the reader amongst everything else that was going on. These scenes were nice little breaks from the very different kind of tension going on for most of the book.

I liked that Gwen, the lone merprincess, was still around a lot in The Savage Blue. I enjoyed her even though I was not sure if she had some other hidden agenda…for now, I like to remember her as she was for the majority of the book.

Thalia was not around as much but her brother Kurt was and Córdova gave the reader the opportunity to learn more about him regarding his past and his personality. It was fun to see his softer and his silly sides and his ire and sensuality was also revealed, which was all a big change from his cool and calm demeanor. Even with everything I learned about Kurt in The Savage Blue, many more questions were raised.

The Savage Blue was even better and more intense than The Vicious Deep. There was tons of action and revelations, some of which were incredibly shocking and totally unexpected for me. This book definitely seems like the game-changer of the series for me and if the next book follows the bar Córdova set for herself, it promises to be even better than the first two and totally epic.

Recommended for readers sixteen and older who enjoy fantasy and paranormal books and who want a realistic teen male voice as the narrator and protagonist. If you are already a fan of The Vicious Deep, there is no doubt that you have to read The Savage Blue immediately.

Zoraida Córdova decided becoming an author was her path in life when she read In the Forests of the Night by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and because of an English class she took. The Vicious Deep was her hilarious and suspenseful debut novel and The Savage Blue is now available.

Website │ Blog │ Goodreads │ Facebook │Twitter │Tumblr │YouTube

Buy on: Amazon │ The Book Depository │ Books-A-Million

a Rafflecopter giveaway

May Reviews: 2013 Books of Eyre Challenge

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:30:09 -0400

Link Your May Reviews!

Please link your May reviews on this post. Each month, there will be a new post where your reviews can be linked for that particular month. You do not need a blog to participate! Posting wherever you post your reviews is fine. I will list the link for each month on the sidebar under the challenge button.

Don’t forget to read the below linking instructions!

When you add the link(s) of your review(s), please leave the book title and your name/blog (i.e. Jane Eyre (Amber) - if you do not have a blog - or Jane Eyre (The Musings of ALMYBNENR) - if you do have a blog). Do not add your blog link but rather the link that will take us directly to your review.

Enjoy this challenge? Please spread the word so we can get more Eyre-iffic participants!

Haven’t signed up yet? Sign up here!

May Reviews: 2013 Tudor Reading Challenge

Wed, 01 May 2013 00:01:22 -0400

Link Your May Reviews!

When you add the link(s) of your review(s), please leave the book title and your name/blog (i.e. The Tudor Secret (Amber) - if you do not have a blog - or The Other Tudors (The Musings of ALMYBNENR) - if you do have a blog). Do not add your blog link but rather the link that will take us directly to your review.

Like this challenge? Please spread the word!

Haven’t signed up yet? Sign up here!

Get A “Twisted Lit” Character Named After You!

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:00:33 -0400

In honor of William Shakespeare’s birthday (celebrated on April 23 – TODAY!), authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes have dropped by with a guest blog post to announce a special contest!

Get A “Twisted Lit” Character Named After You!

We reimagined William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and “Macbeth,” with our “compulsively readable” YA books, Tempestuous and Exposure. Ever since the novels were published a few months ago through Merit Press we’ve encountered a frequent question: Which of Shakespeare’s plays will inspire your next books in the Twisted Lit series?

While we’re currently hard at work putting our own spin on the Bard’s “Romeo and Juliet” we thought we’d look to you, the readers, to help us pick the fourth Shakespeare play that will inspire our next book in the series. Got a hankering for a new spin on “Hamlet?” Love to see “King Lear” get a YA update? Would you make much ado over our take on “Much Ado About Nothing?”

Go to our Facebook page (Facebook.com/Twistedlitnovels) and write on our wall to weigh in on which Shakespeare play you’d like us to revamp next. In doing so, you’ll be entered to have your very own name mentioned in one of our upcoming books (either as a character or some other fun reference). If you’ve always wanted to see your name in print — in a YA novel, no less — now’s your chance! The winner will also receive autographed copies of our first two novels, Tempestuous and Exposure.

We’re looking forward to hearing your suggestions! (And don’t forget to follow us on twitter at @kaskew and @amyhelmes.)

* Winner will not be compensated for use of his or her name, and publication is not guaranteed. Details of plot and character used in connection with the name as it appears in the book are up to the sole discretion of the authors. Contest ends June 1.

Kim & Amy

Thank you, Kim and Amy, for inviting me to be a part of this! This is a wonderful giveaway and a great way to celebrate ol’ Will’s birthday as well. I love King Lear and I think it would be so cool for you two to twist that up. But I also love Twelfth Night with all of its mistaken identity and light-heartedness…I think that would be fun to update as well. Here’s hoping!

Related post:

Review: Exposure (Twisted Lit, 2)

Review: The Sweetest Dark by Shana Abé

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 08:00:12 -0400

Sixteen-year-old Lora Jones was raised in a London orphanage and feels she is special but she hides her abilities, particularly hearing songs only she can hear. Then she is unexpectedly selected as a charity student at the elite Iverson boarding school on the southern coast of England in a gothic castle…practically a world away from what she has known.

There Lora meets Jesse, a young groundskeeper who immediately knows who and what Lora is. She also meets Armand, an arrogant and spoiled student with secrets of his own. She will learn much of her past from both Jesse and Armand, but only one can reveal her future. When danger threatens Iverson, Lora must tap into powers she barely knows how to control.

Shana Abé wrote the majority of The Sweetest Dark from Lora’s point-of-view, but early on after she arrived at Iverson, Abé allowed Jesse to take over for one short chapter to give the reader a varied and important, but quick, perspective.

Ideally, I would write a few words regarding when something about Lora hit me and clicked, but I will have to ignore those notes because they would reveal too much that was not revealed in the synopsis. Bummer!

Back to safe subjects. Lora was full of spunk and that made for good reading. She was the poor little orphan and charity case but she refused to let the aristocratic young ladies at Iverson intimidate her. In fact, she shot verbal barbs right back at them and unwittingly captured Armand’s attention which made the other girls seethe with jealousy, except for the one who had already begun to warm up to Lora. Apart from all the school drama, Lora spent a lot of her time with Jesse, who was a remarkable boy whose goodness and magic failed to reach those up at the school because they believed what they wanted to see. Jesse and Lora were drawn to each other, but there was always something a bit sad that made Jesse distance himself a bit.

In contrast to Jesse, Armand was the arrogant, much-less-loved (or valued as the circumstance might have been) son of the duke of Idylling led a life of bored rebellion until Lora showed up at the boarding school. He was inexplicably drawn to this seemingly drab and plain young girl and even more so when it turned out that he had met his match in her.

There was somewhat of a love triangle between these three characters but when Armand learned both Lora’s and Jesse’s secrets, he was forced to explore his own darkness and an unbreakable bond formed between the three of them that was tested by their place in time because of the war.

The Sweetest Dark was a magical story set during the backdrop of World War I in England with a boarding school at the center to boot. There were a good many elements that attracted me to this novel. It was historical fiction, young adult, fantasy, and I do not know why but I love me some boarding school settings. The title of the book was also perfect. The Sweetest Dark was dark and bittersweet and heartbreaking yet full of hope. Shana Abé’s debut into the young adult market will fill your heart and wrench it from you, only to hand it back to you filled with something similar but changed by circumstance. If your tastes happen to be similar to mine, The Sweetest Dark will keep you on edge, reading faster and faster, and it will beckon quiet tears from your eyes. It will capture you in its spell and refuse to relinquish you from its hold. It was absolutely spellbinding and I am so glad the next book will be out in late summer.

Recommended for readers fourteen and older. The Sweetest Dark has something for everyone: a turbulent historical backdrop in a land full of history, family secrets, fantasy with a touch of magic, a boarding school setting, romance, and bittersweet sorrow.

Shana Abé has been a writer since an early age and she also modeled for a time while in Japan. Her niche genre is historical romance and although known for her stories aimed at adults, this year she has broken into the young adult audience with The Sweetest Dark. She is a recipient of the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award and she has been nominated for the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award six times, with two wins. There are five books in her highly acclaimed Drákon series and The Sweetest Dark is the beginning of a new series that is a distant sequel very loosely related to the former. The second book, The Deepest Night will be out in August 2013.

Website │ Goodreads │ Facebook │ Twitter

Buy on: Amazon │ The Book Depository │ Books-A-Million

bloglovin'

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:15:39 -0400

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Hey all,

I know I’m out of the loop on a lot of things because ever since the move and the issues with this platform, I’ve been so behind on a lot of things. I do know that for months people have been looking for alternatives to Google Reader and I had seen bloglovin’ thrown around as recently as today and I decided to give it a shot. I’ll still use Google Reader until it’s dead, but now I have a backup. I saw once I signed up that 67 people are already following me via bloglovin’, so if that’s what you prefer, go for it!

And if I’m missing anything about bloglovin’ (like, can I move my feed to it????), please let me know in the comments!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Review: Surface by Tiffany Daune (Xpresso Book Tours) + Giveaway

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:01:20 -0400

Synopsis:

Bound to the water bound to land, a Siren’s soul will never be safe on either side of the ocean’s surface. Hidden beneath the rolling waves lies the secret to Theia’s past and as she unveils each haunting truth, she realizes the last seventeen years of her life have been a lie. Now, drawn into a mysterious new world and with nowhere to turn, Theia must place her trust in Luc, a beautiful boy who stops her heart with each dazzling smile, but even his unearthly charm can’t hide the truth—he has secrets— dark secrets binding him to his world—an underwater world where Theia will never belong—a world determined to destroy her soul.

Seventeen-year-old Theia grew up as a normal girl with her single mother…or so she thought. When one day three intruders break into her house and kidnap her all she can think about is fighting back, remembering as much detail as possible, getting away, and getting back to her sure-to-be-worried-sick mother. But Theia is not so lucky, especially when she is dumped into the middle of a body of water as her attackers speed away in a boat trying to elude their own pursuers.

To her astonishment, she survives underwater despite the extremely surreal situation. But Theia survives only to be attacked by deceptively innocent-looking mermaids and then saved from them by a gorgeous guy who looks human but is not. A guy named Luc who calls himself Artagasian and identifies Theia as a forbidden species: siren.

Tiffany Daune’s Surface was a fun and fantastical debut novel. I mean, if your book has anything to do with mermaids or mermaid-like creatures, then you already have me halfway. I will let Daune’s book explain Artagasians, but the heroine, Theia, found out early on that she was of mixed blood – the offspring of an Artagasian and a human. This combination made her a siren, dangerous to those who lived in the water because she could survive on both land and in water. Centuries before, it was an advantage, but because of certain struggles with Artagasians and mermaids against humans, intermingling was forbidden. Of course, it still happened from time to time, as Theia was proof, but it was rare. Besides being kidnapped, dumped into the sea, and learning tons of shocking things about herself and about a world she never knew of, Theia met an Artagasian named Luc who was easy on the eyes and who stirred feelings in her despite just meeting.

I mentioned that Theia learned that she was a siren rather early on in the book. That was a gooood thing. Daune’s book had an excellent beginning in that it was not dragged out with minutia about her kidnappers’ plans and with them scoping her out or anything. They got in there, got her, and the story proper was able to begin. Jumping straight into the action really worked for Surface. Another element I enjoyed was Daune’s use of alternating viewpoints. The story switched between Theia and what was happening directly to her and Celeste, an Artagasian who was actually Luc’s sister. You may be wondering what use being in Luc’s sisters head could be, rather than Daune handing him the reigns every so often. Well…a LOT. I did not understand it at first, but by the time you finish Surface it will make sense to you why we as readers needed Celeste’s point-of-view. There were so many layers to this story and her parts helped me as a reader keep track of them. It turned out that once a few layers were peeled back on both sides of the story, they came together again in a surprising way. If that does not make sense, bear with me and check out the book for yourself and then it will be crystal.

I do not want to get too much into the actual cast of characters because I do not want to accidentally spoil anything and because I thought that there could have been some more character development in Surface. Luckily, Surface is the first in a series, so I am confident that Daune will investigate the natures of these characters further as the story progresses.

The story itself was super interesting. I knew from the synopsis that it dealt with siren mythology, but each book I have read that included sirens has interpreted them differently so I did not know what to expect until I read the book. There were also mermaids and Artagasians as I mentioned above, and it took me a few chapters to understand what and who Artagasians were and how sirens came to be so if you do not get it right away, do not worry and just keep reading because Daune revealed many things bit by bit.

Recommended for readers fourteen and older who enjoy fantasy and paranormal fiction, especially books with mermaids, sirens, or other creatures associated with water. There was some violence that was graphic at times, but it was not anything worse than what can be seen on prime-time television these days, so use your discretion if you get squeamish or if you are a parent/guardian searching for books for your teens. But this violence only existed in a very few parts and it did not detract from the quality of the story.

Rating rounded up from 3.5 because I do not have half-ratings.

Tiffany Daune is young at heart and full of imagination. What could make a believer in mermaids even better? She lives on an island. Surface is her debut novel.

Website │ Blog │ Goodreads │ Facebook │ Twitter

Buy on: Amazon

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out the other tour stops on the Surface Blog Tour, hosted by Xpresso Book Tours, here!

April Reviews: 2013 Books of Eyre Challenge

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:15:04 -0400

Link Your April Reviews!

Please link your April reviews on this post. Each month, there will be a new post where your reviews can be linked for that particular month. You do not need a blog to participate! Posting wherever you post your reviews is fine. I will list the link for each month on the sidebar under the challenge button.

Don’t forget to read the below linking instructions!

Enjoy this challenge? Please spread the word so we can get more Eyre-iffic participants!

Haven’t signed up yet? Sign up here!

April Reviews: 2013 Tudor Reading Challenge

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:05:24 -0400

Link Your April Reviews!

Like this challenge? Please spread the word – let’s up the participation this year!

Haven’t signed up yet? Sign up here!

Review: Mind Games by Kiersten White

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 08:00:00 -0400

Fia and Annie are sisters who tragically lost their parents at a young age and were almost immediately snatched up by an unknown school that focused on unique areas of study. From the start, Fia was suspicious of the school while older sister Annie was thrilled that she would learn new ways to live with her blindness and maybe even some day be able to see…for real. That was why the school wanted Annie…because she had visions of the future and the school wanted her to learn how to control them so they could use her for their own gain. But it turned out that Fia’s talent was a bit more valuable.

Now all grown up, the sisters are still trapped in the school – Annie through her ignorance and Fia through threats to Annie’s safety. Otherwise Fia would have escaped long ago. Because her gut feelings are always correct, the school sends Fia on all kinds of espionage missions that often turn violent. She hates it and she wants out, but how can she risk it when Annie’s life is in danger?

Kiersten White began Mind Games with the funeral of Fia’s and Annie’s parents and then the school convincing their aunt to enroll them. Even as the book switched to present day, White incorporated flashbacks throughout to flesh out the story and provide the reader with pertinent information.

When the reader first met the older Fia, she was on a job for Keane, the guy in charge of the entire scheme of seeking out women with special talents (yes, for some reason only women have these abilities – woman power!). She was supposed to take out an unassuming guy named Adam, but she was conflicted about the whole situation and tried to figure out a way to keep him alive while also keeping her sister alive. Luckily, Fia had a few tricks up her sleeves when it came to other seers like her sister, as well as the “readers” and “feelers”.

Seers were interesting to read about but I found the readers and feelers even more so. Even though mind readers and those susceptible to the emotions of others can be found in popular media, there was just something about the way White named and described them that made the whole concept sound ten times more engaging. As for Fia, she was an enigma. There was no official name for what she could do because as far as anyone knew, she was the only one of her kind.

Both sisters were great characters but I enjoyed Fia more. I was attracted to how emotionally disrupted she was and to her instinctual abilities. She had been through so much and had done so much but she was sooooo strong – and not just physically. She was much stronger than she thought and felt.

Annie’s abilities definitely seemed like both a blessing and a curse. It was cool that she could see glimpses of the future because she was blind and because they were helpful, but it was a curse because she sometimes saw things she did not want to see. Furthermore, sometimes her visions would not come to pass because people’s decisions could change.

Mind Games was an engaging young adult action-thriller with amazing female characters and an even better plot-twisting story. It was so much deeper than Kiersten White’s Paranormalcy and of course in a different genre and league. It was intense and thought-provoking to read and the ending blew me away. I cannot wait for more from this Mind Games series!

Recommended for readers sixteen and older who enjoy action-thrillers with a paranormal twist as well as strong female characters and a mind-blowing story.

Kiersten White has a husband and two children and currently resides in San Diego. She is a stay-at-home mom and a full-time writer. She is the author of the Paranormalcy trilogy which includes Paranormalcy, Supernaturally, and Endlessly. Mind Games is the first book in a new series and a standalone, The Chaos of Stars will be available in fall 2013.

Website │ Blog │ Goodreads │ Facebook │ Twitter

Buy on: Amazon │ The Book Depository │ Books-A-Million

Related posts:

Review: Paranormalcy

Review: The Loved and the Lost (Verona Trilogy, 3) by Lory S. Kaufman (Pump Up Your Book! Virtual Book Publicity Tours)

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 01:31:14 -0400

After the terrible and tragic events at the end of The Bronze and the Brimstone, Hansum, Shamira, and Lincoln return in The Loved and the Lost much matured and intent on leaving their home base of the twenty-fourth century again for fourteenth century Verona with the plan to alter and fix what has already come to pass. But first they must pass some seemingly simple yet at times difficult tests before the Council allows them to go back and pick up the pieces of their adopted medieval family. They know the risks, but they are unprepared for the additional heartache and consequences that their actions and the actions of others may cause. Even though they have all the time in the world, the three teens are anxious to correct the timeline and to save lives…more so because of all the obstacles that stand in their way.

The Loved and the Lost is the final book of the Verona Trilogy and it really topped off the overall story. Lory Kaufman introduced two new main characters and many more side characters that helped fill out (and complicated things for Hansum, Shamira, and Lincoln!) the plot and everything that could possibly go wrong when dealing with time travel and multiple variables, including tons of people.

The three main characters really matured during this book. Hansum learned how to control his impulses and Lincoln was still his laid-back self but with a whole lot more perspective. Shamira was rather mature through most of the trilogy, but she grew as a character as well with her relationship with someone and seemed to look to her future even as she wanted to help resolve the past.

As one would expect with time travel fiction, there was a lots of action and strong emotions throughout, as well as shock for the reader. I cannot spoil anything but there were a lot of intense moments. But The Loved and the Lost, as the title suggests, was way more than time travel. It was about real love and its ups and downs and its happy endings and sorrow. Love was really the driving force of this whole novel.

But back to the time travel part: time travel always boggles my mind, and especially in the Verona Trilogy when the people connected with the History Camps from a few different centuries went back to earlier centuries and sometimes stayed to live there and start relationships. I had to wonder, as I did with The Lens and the Looker and The Bronze and the Brimstone, how it all worked. In what ways could the consequences of time travel change the future? As I write this I am struck with a slight moment of clarity about it. I think people might not have existed in the future when they were in the past but they could still return to their eras whenever they wanted. I think they might not have been able to go into the future in any subsequent centuries other than the one they were born in. I do not think the time travelers could skip ahead, but an older version of themselves could go back. And how did this affect aging? And future, older versions of the time travelers? Confused yet? I am. But Lory Kaufman did a great job of weaving all of these intricacies together and though I may never understand all the theories of time travel he used and others use and even though it is hard for me to explain, it made sense as I read The Loved and the Lost.

Kaufman’s The Loved and the Lost was a fabulous book and it was really quite candid in areas that other books are not usually. Kaufman wrote his first two books with lots of frank observations and he continued that with the final book. Besides the plot, which I cannot write much about without ruining it, the characters’ growth was an important factor. It was a great teacher of character to read about the more grown-up Hansum, Shamira, and Lincoln. The Loved and the Lost portrayed immaturity to self-discovery to a knowledge and awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses and of consequences.

Recommended for readers fourteen and older who are fans of time travel fiction with a very interesting medieval past and technologically-advanced futures.

Lory S. Kaufman is a writer of post-dystopian fiction, kicking off his career with the young adult Verona Trilogy. The first two books in the trilogy, The Lens and the Looker and The Bronze and the Brimstone were released in 2011. This final installment, The Loved and the Lost, was released on 5 February 2013. Lory has three grown children and lives in Kingston, Canada.

Website │ Goodreads │ Facebook │ Twitter │ YouTube

Buy on: Amazon │ The Book Depository │ Books-A-Million

Review: Jane by April Lindner

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 08:00:33 -0400

After the tragic death of her parents, Jane Moore drops out of college for lack of funds to look for a job as a nanny in hopes to save enough money to eventually complete her education. The agency places Jane in the home of Nico Rathburn, a famous rock star, to take care of his young daughter. Generally unimpressed with the rich and the famous, Jane surprises herself by falling for Nico. But a dark secret of his threatens to keep them apart and Jane has a difficult decision to make when all is revealed.

The original Jane Eyre was plain and bookish which was not so abnormal in the Victorian era, but many women of the time were concerned with tradition, show, and fashion. In some ways, our world has not changed so much from then, but April Lindner’s Jane seemed to be even more of a conservative set against this modern twenty-first century backdrop. She was unconcerned with trends and with how she should be in comparison with others of her age. She did not listen to mainstream music or dabble too much with technology. In terms of what was going on in the world, she was disconnected and unaware, only focusing on her little piece of the world, though her awareness slowly expanded once she was thrust into the life of a rock star.

Nico Rathburn, Edward Rochester’s counterpart, had lived the typical rock star life complete with model girlfriends, drugs and alcohol, a life caught on camera, and a custody battle for his daughter. He was not classically handsome but he had a certain ruggedness and he was mostly confident in himself, his abilities, and how he appeared and came across to others, so Jane was a wake-up call for him.

Jane Moore grew up with parents and two siblings, so one would think she was a bit luckier than Brontë’s Jane but her brother was a horrible person her sister was selfish and self-centered and when her parents were alive, they just seemed not to care and not to make much of an effort with Jane. I felt bad for her, maybe even more than for the original Jane because she had a real family who just did not give a damn.

April Lindner’s Jane was a modern retelling of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre that really hit the mark as far as retellings go while freshening up the story for a younger audience and for Eyre buffs. It adhered closely to the original in terms of story and events but with a radically different setting and re-imagined circumstances.

I think if you are a parent, teacher, or someone important in a young person’s life and you want that person to appreciate classic literature, I suggest having them read Jane before or after the original Jane Eyre to heighten her/his interest and show her/him that classic literature still applies to the present. It will provide a fresh perspective that hits somewhat closer to home.

Recommended for readers who are fourteen and older, particularly those who have read Brontë’s Jane Eyre. It is also great for fans of classic retellings and for those who may be reluctant to read the original classics.

April Lindner is a writer, poet, editor, and professor. Her first book was Jane and her second was Catherine, a retelling of Wuthering Heights, published early in 2013. She is a professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. She lives with her husband and two dogs in Pennsylvania.

Website │ Blog │ Goodreads │ Facebook │ Twitter

Buy on: Amazon │ The Book Depository │ Books-A-Million

March Reviews: 2013 Tudor Reading Challenge

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 22:39:00 -0500

Link Your March Reviews!

Please link your March reviews on this post. Each month, there will be a new post where your reviews can be linked for that particular month. You do not need a blog to participate! Posting wherever you post your reviews is fine. I will list the link for each month on the sidebar under the challenge button.

Like this challenge? Please spread the word – let’s up the participation this year!

Haven’t signed up yet? Sign up here!

March Reviews: 2013 Books of Eyre Challenge

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 22:25:00 -0500

Link Your March Reviews!

Don’t forget to read the below linking instructions!

Enjoy this challenge? Please spread the word so we can get more Eyre-iffic participants!

Haven’t signed up yet? Sign up here!

Book Blast: Phantom Summer by Amy Sparling

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 00:01:18 -0500

Phantom Summer by Amy Sparling

Seventeen-year-old Taylor Gray moves to Sterling Island to get over her dead boyfriend. Mom’s cool with letting her crash on the couch, but Taylor needs to get a job before the lights are cut off again.

When the tall, dark and crazy Raine Tsunami offers her a position at his thriving ghost tour business, she figures it’s an easy way to make some cash. Taylor isn’t afraid of ghosts—that crap is as fake as her mom’s boob job. She loves their adventures on the historic island, especially the secret places he shows her when the crowds go home. So what if all the ghost stories are just legends?

When Taylor comes face to face with a ghost and Raine crosses the line between friend and boyfriend—Taylor’s new life collides with her haunted past. If murdered people end up as ghosts, then that someone she was trying to forget is probably trying to find her.

Amazon * Createspace * Goodreads

Praise
“I was wonderfully surprised by Phantom Summer!!! I couldn’t put it down. Loved everything about it.”
~Amazon Reviewer Angelmusic

“The emotions are so well written… I would definitely recommend reading this.”
~Goodreads Reviewer Lauren

Author Amy Sparling

Amy Sparling is a Texas native with a passion for young adult literature. In her free time she participates in an unhealthy amount of Xbox playing, attends nerd conventions and reads books with her daughter. She’s studying to become a high school teacher and lives near the beach with her daughter and two cats. Amy Sparling is a pen name.

Website * Goodreads * Twitter

$50 Book Blast Giveaway

Ends 3/10/13

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 http://iamareader.com and sponsored by the author. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Hysteria by Megan Miranda (Triple Threat Blog Tour)

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:22:19 -0500

On a fateful summer evening, Mallory’s boyfriend Brian breaks into her house. He is drunk, belligerent, and coming at her, causing damage to her and the house. In self-defense, Mallory kills him. Although she was never charged or saw the inside of a prison cell, the details of that night are murky and haunt Mallory every day.

After Brian’s mom begins stalking Mallory’s house, her parents get a restraining order and then decide to send her to Monroe, a boarding school in another state, where she can get away from everything going on at home. Mallory does not mind the out so much, but she does mind having to leave her best friend, Colleen, who has been there for her every step of the way.

At school, Mallory realizes she cannot totally escape her past when she runs into Reid Carlson, a boy whose father was a friend of hers. What makes things worse is that Jason, another student, has connections at the school and knows what Mallory is capable of. No hiding this secret. Especially since the visions come to Mallory every single night and begin leaving physical marks on her body, making her question what is real and what is not.

Hysteria was a very well-written book that revealed things in such a way that kept me guessing and also satisfied me as I was fed each nugget of knowledge. The book was not really scary, but it was a psychological thriller that made me feel uneasy for Mallory and the other characters at times. Mallory lived through a traumatic experience and even though it was considered self-defense, she had lived with guilt ever since and she began having hallucinations - at least that was what I had hoped they were because they seemed so real. She thought Brian was coming for her every night in a constant replay of what happened that night and nothing she did could stop it. Her body even began to physically suffer from one part of her hysteria. Reid, a boy she almost became involved with a few years back, told her that his mom experienced hysteria after a traumatic event and that he learned it was called conversion disorder and it might apply to Mallory, but she was doubtful and so was I, not knowing how long and to what extent it could last.

As Mallory dealt with her daily trials at her new school, I learned more about that summer she dated Brian through alternating flashbacks. However, they did not necessarily stay in order so that every time I thought I would read about the actual killing blow and know exactly what had happened, it would flash back to a different passage.

Hysteria was a very psychological thriller. I was not sure the exact circumstances of the incident that led to the murder so there was, to me, the possibility that it may not have been self-defense or that what actually happened was different from how Mallory remembered it. Then there was what physically happened to Mallory and I could not tell if it was real because she hid the physical evidence from other people even though there was at least one time that I thought someone else noticed it but Megan Miranda crafted the scene so carefully that I could not know for sure. I could not help but sympathize with Mallory because she felt like a victim who was still being wronged for what happened to her and what she did to save herself because everyone else stayed far away from her for the most part and acted like she was a bad person and a liar…but they never acted afraid of her like I felt people would have around someone who had killed.

Oooh, and Miranda gave me a huge shocker in the last quarter or so of Hysteria that blindsided me. As if that was not enough, there was another shocker closer to the end; one that really, really mattered. There really was a lot of mystery and even more suspense. It was a page turner that I enjoyed and I was even more into it than I was with Miranda’s debut young adult novel, Fracture.

Recommended for young adult book fans fourteen and older who enjoyed Megan Miranda’s Fracture as well as other boarding school thrillers such as The Little Woods by McCormick Templeman and the high school thriller Cracked Up to Be, because I think you will enjoy Hysteria much more!

Rating rounded up from 4.5 because I do not have half-ratings.

Megan Miranda was a scientist, high school teacher, and then a stay-at-home mom before writing Fracture. Her debut was inspired by her fascination with scientific mysteries, particularly those involving the human brain. She has a BS in biology from MIT and lives near Charlotte, North Carolina where she volunteers at MIT. Hysteria is her second novel and the third, Vengeance (2014) will be a sequel to Fracture.

Website │ Blog │ Goodreads │ Facebook │ Twitter

Buy on: Amazon │ The Book Depository │ Books-A-Million

Related post:

Review: Fracture

Review: Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 10:00:00 -0500

Disclaimer: No spoilers from Scarlet, but read with caution if you have not read Cinder!

Linh Cinder is in the New Beijing jail but not for long if she can help it. With a bit of unexpected aid, she has a good chance of getting out but when she ends up somewhere she should not be, her jailbreak of one turns into a jailbreak of two.

Scarlet Benoit cares only about her grandmother and her grandmother’s farm but one of those things has been taken from her in the last couple of weeks: her grandmother, Michelle Benoit. The police have given up their search for Scarlet’s grandmother and it enflames her temper and her desire not to give up on her. So, Scarlet takes the search into her own hands but it leads her to a strange young man who makes her feel at ease and uncomfortable from one moment to the next as well as to long-kept secrets that will change everything she knows.

When Scarlet and Cinder end up crossing paths, secrets and questions on both sides may be explained and answered, but they will only raise more questions as their world falls into chaos.

Scarlet was a great follow-up to Marissa Meyer’s Cinder. Cinder was a science fiction retelling of the Cinderella story in the future and Scarlet continued Cinder’s story while adding in Scarlet and her story, a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

Cinder was a familiar character to fans of the first book. Very little time had passed since the end of the first book and the beginning of the next, but Cinder changed a lot. She became super serious and who would not with the enormous weight on her shoulders? She found out that she was more than just a cyborg girl talented with mechanics but that “more” made her feel even less normal than she felt before.

Carswell Thorne was one of three new characters in Scarlet. He was an American in prison for stealing an American spaceship among other indiscretions but fate or accident put him and Cinder together and with no time to spare, they stuck together throughout the book. Thorne was pretty awesome comic relief throughout the book and he was really needed for that since Cinder was experiencing all of these heavy emotions. Thorne was the guy who always had something humorous to say no matter the situation.

Scarlet, the title character, was as fiery as her hair and name suggested. She was quick to temper and was not afraid of backing it up with action, whether it was by taking over the police department’s job by searching for her grandmother herself or by shooting someone. She was also quick to other emotions and felt deeply about people, good or bad, in a short amount of time.

Marissa Meyer alternated the points-of-view of both leading female characters and each was tempered by a male counterpart. Scarlet’s was Wolf, a young man as powerful and as skittish as the animal whose name he borrowed. In his element he was all action and reaction but when it came to places outside of his comfort zone as well as human interaction, he shrunk into himself and fidgeted like, well, a wild animal backed into a corner. He even had other animal-like abilities that were evident early on (and if you read Cinder you may have an idea why, but since I did not re-read it before reading Scarlet, it took me awhile to remember why that seemed familiar, as well as other parts of the book).

There was some romance in the book but it mainly built up and lasted for about the first half before giving way to more important and pressing matters. I will not say between whom it took place but it was clear from the beginning that there would be some sort of romantic tension between these two characters and even though it moved quickly time-wise, it seemed to move slower through the pages because time played a trick and seemed to move slowly.

Okay, so the romance was between Iko and Thorne. Iko liked his pretty face and Thorne always loved his beautiful (and stolen) ship that suddenly had its own personality.

Haha. Kidding! Well, maybe slightly. But really, the characters I was talking about were both of the same sp…well, damn. I guess I cannot say that about any of the characters. Humans, cyborgs, androids, animals…this complicated things. You will just have to read to find out which couple I was referring to.

Like I mentioned, the romance was not everything. It turned out to be a very small part and after the romantic climax, everything in that respect went downhill. Everything got really serious, chaotic, and heartbreaking for all of the characters but focusing on the world around them and various revelations instead of falling back on romance strengthened the book.

Recommended for fans fourteen and older of young adult science fiction and fairy tale retellings, as well as the first book, Cinder.

Marissa Meyer graduated from Pacific Lutheran University with a degree in Creative Writing and then became an editor for a publisher in Seattle. She later earned a Masters degree in Publishing from Pace University. She enjoys road trips, wine tastings, and antique shopping. She lives in Tacoma, Washington with her fiancé and their two cats. Cinder was her debut novel and the first book in the Lunar Chronicles and Scarlet is the second.

Website │ Blog │ Goodreads │ Facebook │ Twitter │ YouTube

Buy on: Amazon │ The Book Depository │ Books-A-Million

Related post:

Review: Cinder

Teaser Tuesday - 12 February 2013

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:01:23 -0500

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

Be careful not to include spoilers!

Share the title and author so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like the teaser!

My teaser comes from Jane by April Lindner:

From page 264:

How strange it was to fear being forcibly returned to Thornfield Park, the place in the world I loved most. But I was afraid, as though my will were a very high, thin branch from which I was dangling, a branch that could snap at any moment.