Review of The Immortal Rules, by Julie Kagawa

Title: The Immortal Rules

Series: Blood of Eden #1
Author: Julie Kagawa
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release Date: April 24, 2012
Source: Netgalley/Publisher
Purchase: Amazon/Barnes & Noble/The Book Depository

Add to Goodreads

To survive in a ruined world, she must embrace the darkness…

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a walled-in city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten. Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them—the vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself dies and becomes one of the monsters.

Forced to flee her city, Allie must pass for human as she joins a ragged group of pilgrims seeking a legend—a place that might have a cure for the disease that killed off most of civilization and created the rabids, the bloodthirsty creatures who threaten human and vampire alike. And soon Allie will have to decide what and who is worth dying for… again.

Enter Julie Kagawa's dark and twisted world as an unforgettable journey begins.

 I started reading 'The Iron Fey' series by Julie Kagawa last year, and completely fell in love with the series. I have not gone through all the books YET, but I am on a mission to pick up the series where I left off.  So I simply could not pass on reading her new vampire series to see what it was all about.

Book Blitz & Giveaway - Flight, by Lindsay Leggett

Good morning YA Science Fiction fans! You may be really interested in checking out this Book Blitz post, brought to you courtesy of Xpresso Book Tours! Do you want it? Then enter the giveaway below for your chance to win a copy.

Title: Flight
Author: Lindsay Leggett
Publisher: Createspace
Release Date: April 1, 2013
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Purchase: Amazon/Barnes & Noble

Add to Goodreads

The first rule of survival in the Underground: When you’re outside, keep your eyes on the skies. Ace Harpy Hunter Piper Madden is used to danger, but the death of her brother slams the brakes on her high-torque lifestyle and leaves her broken and confused.

On the run from the dictating Elder Corporation, she’s eventually found in the quiet undergound city of Ichton and asked to work for the Corp on contract to quell a new and frightening Harpy threat.

Enter the discovery of horrifying Corporation secrets, Harpy attacks, and a new friendship with the strange Asher, and Piper’s days become anything but boring.

Then, a chance encounter leaves Piper privy to a dangerous secret, ad as she and Asher team up in an effort to unravel the truth, the secrets they uncover beneath the ancient walls of the dead city will spark their world into a grand-scale war.

Giveaway!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

AUTHOR BIO:

Nearly every writer struggles to put together information about themselves, perhaps because we’re so used to detailing the lives and ways of others. For the most part I am a writer, editor, photographer, and all-around artist living in the wilds north of Toronto, Ontario. I thrive on the juxtaposition of beauty and grit, enjoy urban crawls, indie everything, and time well-spent in the woods.

Author Links:

Website / Goodreads / Twitter

Worldwind Tours & Bookluvrs Haven present 'Trapped' by George A. Bernstein

Hello all of our fellow Bookluvrs!

It feels like an eternity that I've been able to read and get a review up here!  Life is so busy with Logan! He's teething, not sleeping. constantly needing attention.  Finding any time to read a book that's not made of fabric or cardboard is proving to be more difficult than I imagined!  Thankfully I have Lily to help keep things booming on the blog!  

I was offered this book by a blog tour company called Worldwind Virtual Book Tours and it looked way too good to pass up! 

I hope you enjoy my review!

Happy Print Release Day!

I read Lena Goldfinch`s The Language of Souls not that long ago, which I really liked. When she reached out to let me know her new novel, Aire was being released today in print, I was not only excited to spread the word, but to also read this novel. 

Happy Print Release Day! I am looking forward to this new adventure. 

Add to Goodreads

"Danger, magic, romance, and royal intrigue, AIRE is a must read!"
—NYT Bestselling Author JESSICA ANDERSEN

A tale of Legends reborn, royal intrigue, and an unforgettable, heart-melting romance that will sweep you away.

Annalisia is a seer, a princess with a courageous spirit—and a soft spot for Legends.

Jovanni is a Legend, a commoner with no patience for pampered royals.

Principessa Annalisia is stunned and conscience-stricken when an unknown enemy mistakenly abducts her maidservant. Determined to find the girl, Annalisia disguises herself as plain Anna and slips away from the palace. She tracks down Jovanni, her maidservant's daring older brother, and they soon begin to search together. As they uncover clues, Anna also discovers a kindred spirit in Jovanni. But would he be so free with her if he knew who she really was? Doubtful. Even so, she reveals her secret gift of visions to him, and in so doing disobeys the orders of her beloved grandmother, the queen.

With Jovanni, Anna can almost imagine she’s like any other seventeen year old girl, free to pursue the longings of her heart. When she learns that he also has a secret—he's a sentinel, an ancient shapeshifter who can take the form of a falcon—it seems as if they were destined to be together, as in the legends of il Sentiro. Though Anna is tempted to wish otherwise, she can’t forget that she’s a princess and it's her duty to marry another. Meanwhile, their hunt leads Anna ever closer to danger, for she herself is being hunted.

A princess and a commoner.

They never should have fallen in love...but they did.

AIRE is a lush, romantic fantasy, inspired by ancient Italy and Turkey.

Pimp my GR Friend - May Picks!

Welcome to our monthly feature of Pimp my GR Friends, where I showcase a random friend from Goodreads.com, pick three books in common, and ask you guys to help me choose which book I should read by voting in the poll below. 

You guys sure made it tough on my last month with a tie, but I got through both 'The Immortal Rules' and just finished 'Angelfall'. Reviews will be up soon so stay tuned for that.

Below are the picks for May. Take a look and give me a vote. Once you do, keep on reading to meet the GR friend that I share these with.  

Here are the Picks!!  

(you can click on the book covers to read the description on GR)

 Hmmmm... a little theme here? Ya I am dying for some zombies, and some good action. I have wanted to make time for each and every single one of these books this past year. Help me choose by voting below. Poll closes April 28th at 2359 hours.

 

Meet my GR Friend!

This month I randomly chose Elizabeth, who is also a blogger at Stuffed Shelves. 

Review of Shadow of Wrath, by L.W. Patricks - An Xpresso Book Tour

Once in a while, a book comes around that surprisingly blows me away. This book is one of those. Thank you to the author and Xpresso Book Tours for the opportunity to discover it. Follow the tour schedule to check out some other awesome bloggers, and check out what they thought! There is also a GIVEAWAY at the end of this post that I don't think you should miss!

Title: Shadow of Wrath
Author: L.W. Patricks

Series: Sins of the 7, Book 1 
Genre: YA Dystopian
Release Date: March 13, 2013
Purchase: Amazon/Smashwords/Kobo

Add to Goodreads

In the Arena, you're either a killer or a victim.

If survival meant murdering an innocent person in cold blood every week, could you do it? Are you able to stick the knife into your opponent's heart while they look at you with fear in their eyes? Life in the Arena turns everyone into sinners.

A homeless boy is kidnapped from the streets and finds himself imprisoned in a far more horrifying place: The Arena, a place where teenage boys fight to the death for the pleasure of various lowlifes.

The Arena is the brainchild of Ryker, an ex-convict addicted to alcohol, gladiatorial-esque combats, and money. When not devising new ways for boys to kill each other, he’s ruling his small empire with a ruthless fist, rewarding his guards with sex slaves and punishing those who oppose him with barbaric executions.

Renamed Dog, the boy from the street proves to be an excellent fighter and finds himself surviving week after week, but as he leaves a trail of bodies in his wake, the ghosts of slain boys haunt him and the violence threatens to wake a beast inside him.

Allegra, a slave girl in the Arena and a victim of Ryker's constant abuse, is his only key to salvation. She has lost everything already -- her family, her innocence, and her dignity -- while her will to live hangs on by a thin thread. Can she save Dog's humanity before she too succumbs to the horrors of the Arena?

Seeking to defy Ryker as Dog rises to power as his champion, the stage is set for something to give in this murderous world of young combatants.

A tale about survival, tragedy, and human perseverance, the Complete SHADOW OF WRATH is the first book in the Sins of the 7 series.

Review of Lucretia and the Kroons, by Victor Lavalle

Title: Lucretia and the Kroons
Author: Victor Lavalle
Publisher: Spiegel and Grau
Release Date: July 23, 2012
Source: Netgalley/Publisher
Purchase: Amazon/Barnes & Noble

Add to Goodreads

Lucretia’s best friend and upstairs neighbor Sunny—a sweet pitbull of a kid, even as she struggles with a mysterious illness—has gone missing. The only way to get her back is for Lucretia to climb the rickety fire escape of their Queens tenement and crawl through the window of apartment 6D, portal to a vast shadowland of missing kids ruled by a nightmarish family of mutants whose designs on the children are unknown. Her search for Sunny takes Lucretia through a dark fantasyland where she finds lush forests growing from concrete, pigeon-winged rodents, and haunted playgrounds. Her quest ultimately forces her to confront the most frightening specter of all: losing, forever, the thing you love the most.

Lucretia and the Kroons is a dazzlingly imaginative adventure story and a moving exploration of the power of friendship and the terror of loss. This all-new novella serves as the perfect companion piece to The Devil in Silver, a thrillingly suspenseful work of literary horror that continues the story of Lucretia.

  

This is a horror novella.

That's right.

Book Blitz & Giveaways - Sworn to Raise, by Terah Edun

Good morning YA Fantasy fans! You may be really interested in checking out this Book Blitz post, brought to you courtesy of Xpresso Book Tours! And there are two giveaways with this one! Enter to win your very own ebook copy (open Internationally!), and there is a blog wide giveaway for a $25 gift card. Get your entries in, at the end of this post!

Title: Sworn to Raise
Author: Terah Edun
Publisher: Amazon Digital
Release Date: January 8, 2013
Genre: YA Fantasy
Purchase: Amazon

Add to Goodreads

Seventeen-year-old Ciardis has grown up in poverty, a cleaner in a small vale on the outskirts of the kingdom. But beneath her kingdom’s seemingly idyllic surface lies a hidden secret. Whispers of an inept crown Prince are growing ever louder—intensified by the five year anniversary of the soulbond initiations.

Amidst scandalous whispers, Ciardis finds herself chosen to train for the Companion’s Guild. She leaves her home and sets off on a personal journey to become a Court Companion. A position she’d never thought possible for a lowly servant to obtain, she must prove that she has the skills to attract a Patron.

But she must master those skills quickly. If the legends are true, only Ciardis can harness the power to raise a Prince in an Imperial Court sworn to bring him down.

This sensational series debut melds intricate storylines with remarkable characters and unforgettable magic. Sworn To Raise is ideal for fans of Kristin Cashore, Michelle Sagara, and Maria Snyder.

Ebook Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Wide Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

AUTHOR BIO:

Terah Edun is an international development professional and author/lover of all things Young Adult Fantasy fiction. She is a native Georgian, adoptive Washingtonian, unrepentant expat currently living in South Sudan, brilliant dreamer, lover of dogs and not-so-closet geek. Her first novel, Red Madrassa, was released on November 8th and her second novel, Sworn to Raise, comes out in April 2013.

Author Links:

Website: http://teedun.com/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6517970.Terah_Edun

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerahEdunAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/terahedun

Review of Broken, by A. E. Rought

Title: Broken
Author: A. E. Rought
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Release Date: January 8, 2013
Source: Netgalley/Publisher
Purchase: Amazon/Barnes & Noble/The Book Depository

Add to Goodreads

Imagine a modern spin on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where a young couple’s undying love and the grief of a father pushed beyond sanity could spell the destruction of them all.

A string of suspicious deaths near a small Michigan town ends with a fall that claims the life of Emma Gentry's boyfriend, Daniel. Emma is broken, a hollow shell mechanically moving through her days. She and Daniel had been made for each other, complete only when they were together. Now she restlessly wanders the town in the late Fall gloom, haunting the cemetery and its white-marbled tombs, feeling Daniel everywhere, his spectre in the moonlight and the fog.

When she encounters newcomer Alex Franks, only son of a renowned widowed surgeon, she's intrigued despite herself. He's an enigma, melting into shadows, preferring to keep to himself. But he is as drawn to her as she is to him. He is strangely... familiar. From the way he knows how to open her locker when it sticks, to the nickname she shared only with Daniel, even his hazel eyes with brown flecks are just like Daniel's.

The closer they become, though, the more something inside her screams there's something very wrong with Alex Franks. And when Emma stumbles across a grotesque and terrifying menagerie of mangled but living animals within the walls of the Franks' estate, creatures she surely knows must have died from their injuries, she knows.

ARC Review of Echo, by Alicia Wright Brewster

Title: Echo
Author: Alicia Wright Brewster
Publisher: Dragonfairy Press
Release Date: April 25, 2013
Source: Publisher
Purchase: Amazon/Barnes & Noble/The Book Depository

Add to Goodreads

The countdown clock reads ten days until the end of the world. The citizens are organized. Everyone's been notified and assigned a duty. The problem is . . . no one knows for sure how it will end.

Energy-hungry Mages are the most likely culprit. They travel toward a single location from every corner of the continent. Fueled by the two suns, each Mage holds the power of an element: air, earth, fire, metal, water, or ether. They harness their powers to draw energy from the most readily available resource: humans.

Ashara has been assigned to the Ethereal task force, made up of human ether manipulators and directed by Loken, a young man with whom she has a complicated past. Loken and Ashara bond over a common goal: to stop the Mages from occupying their home and gaining more energy than they can contain. But soon, they begin to suspect that the future of the world may depend on Ashara's death.

Book Blitz - Short Soup, by Coleen Kwan

Here is an interesting book that came to our attention, made possible by FMB Author Promotions. It sounded really interesting to me, so helping to spread the word. Take a look at the book description below, and add it to your 'to read' list today!

Title: Short Soup

Author: Coleen Kwan

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Escape Publishing

Format: Ebook

Length: 130 pages

Buy Links: Escape Publishing | Amazon | iTunes | Kobo |

Add to Goodreads

Book Description:

A story about best friends, childhood dreams, and the healing power of Chinese food…

Toni Lau and Dion Chan were connected from birth — first via their parents’ jointly-owned restaurant, then via their bone-deep friendship. But children grow up, and Toni leaves their sleepy hometown looking for more than it can offer.

Now Toni is back, raw with the knowledge that not all childhood dreams come true. Dion is on the brink of realising that both his own ambitions and his childhood friend have the power to derail all of his hard work. But loving Toni — and winning her love in return — has always been on his wish list. Can Dion really put her on the back burner while frying up his chef dreams? Or is it possible that together they can come up with a recipe for happiness?

Grimm Diaries Sunday - Review of Mary Mary Quite Contrary, by Cameron Jace

 
Last year I jumped on The Grimm Diaries bandwagon. Meaning, the author had a slew of promotional dates where he was offering the novellas for free on Amazon. The covers are stunning, and I am a sucker for fairytale retellings. Unfortunately it has taken me until the beginning of this year to start reading them, so over the course of the past few weeks, I have been featuring reviews for each installment. 
 
 Check out last week's review of  Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.

Title: Mary Mary Quite Contrary
Series: The Grimm Diaries Prequels #5
Author: Cameron Jace
Publisher: Author
Release Date: Sept. 13, 2012
Source: Amazon - Free promotion
Purchase: Amazon

Add to Goodreads

Book Description: What if all you knew about fairy tales was wrong?


The Devil's take on fairy tales, exposing the origins of some of the most important, yet never explained, elements in the fairy world. Darker things the Brothers Grimm didn't want you to know about. More hints would just spoil the fun.

Let's just say that at some point in the Dreamworld even the devil was about so sell his soul.This Grimm Diaries Prequels are a number of short books in the form of epistolary diary entries. The diaries are more of teasers for the upcoming series: The Grimm Diaries, allowing you to get a glimpse of what to expect of the series.

After finally really enjoying one of these prequels, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, this installment was a major disappointment. 

The editing is no longer a cause of frustration. But the story itself was.

It was mostly told, not shown. So I couldn't really connect with any of these characters. They were all kept at a distance, and even though this was the darkest of the prequels, I could have cared less about finishing this one, even though it was only about 29 pages. 

I once again struggled with the dialogue. I just couldn't connect it with the characters. Here is an example:

“How come I don’t know about that stuff? I am freakin’ Lucifer.”

“Because you spent your time hatin’ not participatin’” Rumpelstiltskin said. *

(sigh)

 

No.... Just No.....

Unfortunately, this is very likely the last review I will write on the Grimm series, because it is very likely the last one I will read. 

 

I sincerely thank the author for his generosity in extending the free promotional news my way.

Though I recognize the originality, the execution of it is just not calling out to me to continue any further. 

 

It is time for me to move on.

* Jace, Cameron (2012-09-13). Mary Mary Quite Contrary ( A Grimm Diaries Prequel #5 ) (Kindle Locations 416-418).  . Kindle Edition.

About the Author: Wonderlander, Neverlander, Unicorn-chaser, enchanter, musician, survived a coma, & totally awesome. Sometimes I tell stories. Always luv the little monsters      I write young adult paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and science fiction mostly. The Grimm Diaries series is a seven book saga that deals with retellings of fairy tales from a young adult POV - it connects most of the fairy tales together and claims to be the truth about fairy tales.      I live in San Fransisco and seriously think circles are way cooler than triangles.

Website | Facebook | Twitter| Goodreads |

Review of Captured, by Kenya Wright

Title: Captured
Series: The Vampire King, Book 2
Author: Kenya Wright
Publisher: Secret Cravings Publishing
Release Date: February 6, 2013
Source: Author
Purchase: Amazon/Barnes & Noble/Secret Cravings Publishing 

Add to Goodreads

Book Description: Can she escape him or was she captured the whole time?

Brie and Samuel travel to the human town of Freemont and learn that Brie is being hunted. Brie is more than a domina. But what is she? And why is she being hunted as if she is the solution to a puzzle that the Quiet King has never been able to solve?

Samuel and Brie are forced to align with another, one that holds many answers and incites even more questions. Their journey drags them back to Capitol City and among the night life where sex and secrets mingle together within the light of the two moons. All this time Brie thought she’d escaped and gotten away free from vampires. But can she run away anymore or was she captured the whole time?

Head's up: 

This is a review of Book 2 of the Vampire King Series, so though I will try my best not to divulge any spoilers, just be cautious if you haven't read Book 1 yet (which was GREAT!!).

On to the review: