Devon Ashley's Blog, page 3
January 19, 2015
The Wicked Awakening of Anne Merchant by Joanna Wiebe (ARC)
The Wicked Awakening of Anne Merchant (The V Trilogy #2)
Joanna Wiebe
Exp. Pub.: January 20, 2015 (TOMORROW!!)
Life and death, light and dark, spirit and flesh - on Wormwood Island, the lines are always blurred. For Anne Merchant, who has been thrust back into this eerily secretive world, crossing the line seems inevitable, inescapable, destined.
Now, as Ben finds himself battling for the Big V and Teddy reveals the celestial plan in which Anne is entwined, Anne must choose: embrace her darkly powerful connection to a woman known as Lilith and, in doing so, save the boy she loves...or follow a safer path that is sure to lead to Ben's destruction at the hands of dark leaders. Hoping the ends will justify the means, Anne starts down the slippery slope into the underworld, intent on exploring the dark to find the light. But as the lure of Lilith proves powerfully strong, will Anne save others - only to lose herself?
***If you haven't read The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant, there be spoilers ahead!***
Unique, mysterious and heartbreaking. Anne Merchant proves even the darkest of souls can be selfless when it comes to saving the ones you love.
Right when Anne Merchant thought she had Villicus beat, she's cruelly ripped from the mortal world and forced to return to Wormwood Island, where the residents are anything but living. Even though Anne's the only student attending Cania Christy who is selectively different, she can still be put in her place by blackmail. Her actions have not only backfired on herself, but her father and Ben as well. Her father is now forced to do the same work as Ben's father, and Ben is now forced to attend the school and compete for the big V as well. And for those of you naughty readers who are breezing through my review before reading the first novel, the V doesn't stand for what you think it does, obviously. :)
But Anne's problems don't end with being nicknamed Murdering Merchant by her heckling classmates. Villicus has been replaced by yet another headmaster, one who has way too much interest in Anne and scheduling special mentoring sessions to occupy her time. But with Ben's time ticking away until graduation and him making no effort to win the elite prize, Anne must do the unthinkable to force him to try, and the repercussions are even worse than she anticipated. So the return of a lost friend couldn't come at a more opportune time, though her reason for being there is bittersweet.
With the arrival of a group of unusual female teachers, it doesn't take Anne long to realize who they are, and as she does what she's told and begins to look more closely at everything around her, she begins to realize there's a bigger game at play, and that Anne herself has a history that could unravel Cania Christy's very way of life on a permanent basis.
4.5 dreamcatchers. If you read the first, the second is even better. If you haven't read the first novel yet, check it out. For awhile you'll think their competition is downright silly until you learn what they're really competing for, then it all seems to make sense why they go about it the way they do. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing how the final installment of this paranormal trilogy plays out, and whether or not Anne will be able to fix the heartbreaking nightmare we're currently left with.
ARC provided by BenBella Books for honest review.
Joanna Wiebe
Exp. Pub.: January 20, 2015 (TOMORROW!!)
Life and death, light and dark, spirit and flesh - on Wormwood Island, the lines are always blurred. For Anne Merchant, who has been thrust back into this eerily secretive world, crossing the line seems inevitable, inescapable, destined.Now, as Ben finds himself battling for the Big V and Teddy reveals the celestial plan in which Anne is entwined, Anne must choose: embrace her darkly powerful connection to a woman known as Lilith and, in doing so, save the boy she loves...or follow a safer path that is sure to lead to Ben's destruction at the hands of dark leaders. Hoping the ends will justify the means, Anne starts down the slippery slope into the underworld, intent on exploring the dark to find the light. But as the lure of Lilith proves powerfully strong, will Anne save others - only to lose herself?
***If you haven't read The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant, there be spoilers ahead!***
Unique, mysterious and heartbreaking. Anne Merchant proves even the darkest of souls can be selfless when it comes to saving the ones you love.
Right when Anne Merchant thought she had Villicus beat, she's cruelly ripped from the mortal world and forced to return to Wormwood Island, where the residents are anything but living. Even though Anne's the only student attending Cania Christy who is selectively different, she can still be put in her place by blackmail. Her actions have not only backfired on herself, but her father and Ben as well. Her father is now forced to do the same work as Ben's father, and Ben is now forced to attend the school and compete for the big V as well. And for those of you naughty readers who are breezing through my review before reading the first novel, the V doesn't stand for what you think it does, obviously. :)
But Anne's problems don't end with being nicknamed Murdering Merchant by her heckling classmates. Villicus has been replaced by yet another headmaster, one who has way too much interest in Anne and scheduling special mentoring sessions to occupy her time. But with Ben's time ticking away until graduation and him making no effort to win the elite prize, Anne must do the unthinkable to force him to try, and the repercussions are even worse than she anticipated. So the return of a lost friend couldn't come at a more opportune time, though her reason for being there is bittersweet.
With the arrival of a group of unusual female teachers, it doesn't take Anne long to realize who they are, and as she does what she's told and begins to look more closely at everything around her, she begins to realize there's a bigger game at play, and that Anne herself has a history that could unravel Cania Christy's very way of life on a permanent basis.
4.5 dreamcatchers. If you read the first, the second is even better. If you haven't read the first novel yet, check it out. For awhile you'll think their competition is downright silly until you learn what they're really competing for, then it all seems to make sense why they go about it the way they do. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing how the final installment of this paranormal trilogy plays out, and whether or not Anne will be able to fix the heartbreaking nightmare we're currently left with.
ARC provided by BenBella Books for honest review.
January 12, 2015
When by Victoria Laurie (ARC)
When
Victoria Laurie
Exp. Pub.: January 13, 2015 (TOMORROW!!!)
Maddie Fynn is a shy high school junior, cursed with an eerie intuitive ability: she sees a series of unique digits hovering above the foreheads of each person she encounters. Her earliest memories are marked by these numbers, but it takes her father’s premature death for Maddie and her family to realize that these mysterious digits are actually death dates, and just like birthdays, everyone has one.
Forced by her alcoholic mother to use her ability to make extra money, Maddie identifies the quickly approaching death date of one client's young son, but because her ability only allows her to see the when and not the how, she’s unable to offer any more insight. When the boy goes missing on that exact date, law enforcement turns to Maddie.
Soon, Maddie is entangled in a homicide investigation, and more young people disappear and are later found murdered. A suspect for the investigation, a target for the murderer, and attracting the attentions of a mysterious young admirer who may be connected to it all, Maddie's whole existence is about to be turned upside down. Can she right things before it's too late?
Maddie's never been a true fan of seeing the random numbers on everyone's foreheads. Especially once her father died on the exact same day that matched the sequence on his forehead. Now riddled with guilt, she moves forward always wondering if she could have some how stopped his death had she only understood what she was seeing. These days, she's a teenager who accepts money to tell people their death dates. When a client comes in asking about her daughter, Maddie realizes it's her son she needs to worry about, with a death date just a week away. Unfortunately, the mother takes her remark as a scam and leaves in a huff, calling Maddie a fraud. Even more unfortunate, when her son goes missing and dies by means of torture, she's quick to poke the finger at Maddie, who now becomes the number one suspect in his murder, despite a bunch of evidence pointing elsewhere. Her lawyer uncle runs interference, but Maddie is unable to keep her death dates to herself like he asked. When she spots that her best friend's crush is going to die soon too, he becomes obsessed with finding a way to save her, which only drags him into the suspect pool as well. With her alcoholic mother falling apart even more than usual, the teachers and students turning on her at school and the FBI breathing down her neck, Maddie finds it exhausting to keep her head above water, especially once the serial killer begins taking an interest in her. I'm not really sure if I'd go around telling strangers their death dates if I had that special ability. Would you? Neither would Maddie, but thanks to her alcoholic mother, they needed the extra money to make up for all the vodka bottles. Bad luck really, because it's responsible for spotlighting her gift to naysayers and doubters and attracting attention where she could've gone without. Gotta feel for the girl, especially when she continually tries to get her mother to beat her addiction just so she won't have to continue doing the readings. As for the serial killer, I guess I found it a bit unrealistic that the FBI would focus so hard on as Maddie as a suspect when it was clear that the evidence was screaming someone else did it. Not to mention she was just a female teenager with good grades and not a strike of red on her permanent record. I guess I could've found their interest in her more plausible if at least some of the evidence had a legitimate chance of being left by her before testing results came in... I don't know. It seemed discrimination drove their investigation instead of the hard facts, which I don't see the FBI doing against a teenage girl. This lack of realism is the main reason I've docked it a little in the star department. Otherwise, it was a pretty good read that kept my attention, and I think most people will find it an enjoyable quick read with just enough mystery to keep you guessing.
ARC provided by Disney-Hyperion for honest review.
Victoria Laurie
Exp. Pub.: January 13, 2015 (TOMORROW!!!)
Maddie Fynn is a shy high school junior, cursed with an eerie intuitive ability: she sees a series of unique digits hovering above the foreheads of each person she encounters. Her earliest memories are marked by these numbers, but it takes her father’s premature death for Maddie and her family to realize that these mysterious digits are actually death dates, and just like birthdays, everyone has one. Forced by her alcoholic mother to use her ability to make extra money, Maddie identifies the quickly approaching death date of one client's young son, but because her ability only allows her to see the when and not the how, she’s unable to offer any more insight. When the boy goes missing on that exact date, law enforcement turns to Maddie.
Soon, Maddie is entangled in a homicide investigation, and more young people disappear and are later found murdered. A suspect for the investigation, a target for the murderer, and attracting the attentions of a mysterious young admirer who may be connected to it all, Maddie's whole existence is about to be turned upside down. Can she right things before it's too late?
Maddie's never been a true fan of seeing the random numbers on everyone's foreheads. Especially once her father died on the exact same day that matched the sequence on his forehead. Now riddled with guilt, she moves forward always wondering if she could have some how stopped his death had she only understood what she was seeing. These days, she's a teenager who accepts money to tell people their death dates. When a client comes in asking about her daughter, Maddie realizes it's her son she needs to worry about, with a death date just a week away. Unfortunately, the mother takes her remark as a scam and leaves in a huff, calling Maddie a fraud. Even more unfortunate, when her son goes missing and dies by means of torture, she's quick to poke the finger at Maddie, who now becomes the number one suspect in his murder, despite a bunch of evidence pointing elsewhere. Her lawyer uncle runs interference, but Maddie is unable to keep her death dates to herself like he asked. When she spots that her best friend's crush is going to die soon too, he becomes obsessed with finding a way to save her, which only drags him into the suspect pool as well. With her alcoholic mother falling apart even more than usual, the teachers and students turning on her at school and the FBI breathing down her neck, Maddie finds it exhausting to keep her head above water, especially once the serial killer begins taking an interest in her. I'm not really sure if I'd go around telling strangers their death dates if I had that special ability. Would you? Neither would Maddie, but thanks to her alcoholic mother, they needed the extra money to make up for all the vodka bottles. Bad luck really, because it's responsible for spotlighting her gift to naysayers and doubters and attracting attention where she could've gone without. Gotta feel for the girl, especially when she continually tries to get her mother to beat her addiction just so she won't have to continue doing the readings. As for the serial killer, I guess I found it a bit unrealistic that the FBI would focus so hard on as Maddie as a suspect when it was clear that the evidence was screaming someone else did it. Not to mention she was just a female teenager with good grades and not a strike of red on her permanent record. I guess I could've found their interest in her more plausible if at least some of the evidence had a legitimate chance of being left by her before testing results came in... I don't know. It seemed discrimination drove their investigation instead of the hard facts, which I don't see the FBI doing against a teenage girl. This lack of realism is the main reason I've docked it a little in the star department. Otherwise, it was a pretty good read that kept my attention, and I think most people will find it an enjoyable quick read with just enough mystery to keep you guessing.
ARC provided by Disney-Hyperion for honest review.
January 7, 2015
Vanished by Elizabeth Heiter (ARC)
Vanished (The Profiler #2)
Elizabeth Heiter
Exp. Pub.: December 30, 2014
Sometimes the past can haunt you...
Eighteen years ago, FBI profiler Evelyn Baine's best friend, Cassie Byers, disappeared, the third in a series of unsolved abductions. Only a macabre nursery rhyme was left at the scene, a nursery rhyme that claimed Evelyn was also an intended victim. Now, after all these years of silence, another girl has gone missing in South Carolina, and the Nursery Rhyme Killer is taking credit. But is Cassie s abductor really back, or is there a copycat at work?
Sometimes the past is best forgotten...
Evelyn has waited eighteen years for a chance to investigate, but when she returns to Rose Bay, she finds a dark side to the seemingly idyllic town. As the place erupts in violence and the kidnapper strikes again, Evelyn knows this is her last chance. If she doesn't figure out what happened to Cassie eighteen years ago, it may be Evelyn s turn to vanish without a trace..
Hmm... I'm hitting quite a few novels lately that are just ho-hum, and Vanished was no exception. The story follows Evelyn Baine as she travels back to her hometown, where a girl has gone missing. Kicker is, Evelyn herself was meant to be a kidnap victim of the Nursery Rhyme Killer eighteen years ago, so she puts her stubborn foot down and all but forces her way onto the case as the FBI's profiler. But it's not just the killer who awaits her return, but the police officer who grilled her to the bone last time she was there, determined to do anything to finally close this case. I've always loved books and movies where you have a serial kidnapper or killer wrecking havoc on a small town, but this one just didn't do it for me. Evelyn and her comrades continually went between three possible suspects with very little to show for it, and it slowed the pace of the story so much it was triumph just to make it to the next chapter. Maybe it was Evelyn's complete disregard for the rules and allowing her emotions to say screw you to the necessary steps needed to gather legitimate evidence that wouldn't be thrown out in court because of unlawful obtainment, but her attitude really rubbed me the wrong way.
I get that she was meant to be a victim herself and that her childhood best friend was probably dead, but she seemed to be on a one-girl mission of stupidity going off doing illegal searches and putting herself in dangerous situations without backup or communication. I mean seriously? You're trying to get an abductor/killer put away. Don't mess it up. There are two little girls missing out there, so try not to make it all about you and your almost-but-never-happened kidnapping twenty years ago.
Be mad, be vigilant, just don't be stupid and blow it to the point this scumbag never sees the inside of a prison.
Sadly, by just a third of the way in, I thought the person who was responsible for the abductions was as obvious as a goldfish in a piranha tank, but for some reason, Evelyn and company were completely blind to what was right in front of them, so law enforcement comes off looking pretty stupid in this novel. It was either the killer's doing or just dumb luck that they managed to unearth anything at all. So, meh. Don't get me wrong, This was by no means a bad book, but it lacked the necessary mystery and suspense and actual police work to get me to read the other books in this series.
ARC provided by Mira for honest review.
Elizabeth Heiter
Exp. Pub.: December 30, 2014
Sometimes the past can haunt you...Eighteen years ago, FBI profiler Evelyn Baine's best friend, Cassie Byers, disappeared, the third in a series of unsolved abductions. Only a macabre nursery rhyme was left at the scene, a nursery rhyme that claimed Evelyn was also an intended victim. Now, after all these years of silence, another girl has gone missing in South Carolina, and the Nursery Rhyme Killer is taking credit. But is Cassie s abductor really back, or is there a copycat at work?
Sometimes the past is best forgotten...
Evelyn has waited eighteen years for a chance to investigate, but when she returns to Rose Bay, she finds a dark side to the seemingly idyllic town. As the place erupts in violence and the kidnapper strikes again, Evelyn knows this is her last chance. If she doesn't figure out what happened to Cassie eighteen years ago, it may be Evelyn s turn to vanish without a trace..
Hmm... I'm hitting quite a few novels lately that are just ho-hum, and Vanished was no exception. The story follows Evelyn Baine as she travels back to her hometown, where a girl has gone missing. Kicker is, Evelyn herself was meant to be a kidnap victim of the Nursery Rhyme Killer eighteen years ago, so she puts her stubborn foot down and all but forces her way onto the case as the FBI's profiler. But it's not just the killer who awaits her return, but the police officer who grilled her to the bone last time she was there, determined to do anything to finally close this case. I've always loved books and movies where you have a serial kidnapper or killer wrecking havoc on a small town, but this one just didn't do it for me. Evelyn and her comrades continually went between three possible suspects with very little to show for it, and it slowed the pace of the story so much it was triumph just to make it to the next chapter. Maybe it was Evelyn's complete disregard for the rules and allowing her emotions to say screw you to the necessary steps needed to gather legitimate evidence that wouldn't be thrown out in court because of unlawful obtainment, but her attitude really rubbed me the wrong way. 
I get that she was meant to be a victim herself and that her childhood best friend was probably dead, but she seemed to be on a one-girl mission of stupidity going off doing illegal searches and putting herself in dangerous situations without backup or communication. I mean seriously? You're trying to get an abductor/killer put away. Don't mess it up. There are two little girls missing out there, so try not to make it all about you and your almost-but-never-happened kidnapping twenty years ago.
Be mad, be vigilant, just don't be stupid and blow it to the point this scumbag never sees the inside of a prison.
Sadly, by just a third of the way in, I thought the person who was responsible for the abductions was as obvious as a goldfish in a piranha tank, but for some reason, Evelyn and company were completely blind to what was right in front of them, so law enforcement comes off looking pretty stupid in this novel. It was either the killer's doing or just dumb luck that they managed to unearth anything at all. So, meh. Don't get me wrong, This was by no means a bad book, but it lacked the necessary mystery and suspense and actual police work to get me to read the other books in this series.
ARC provided by Mira for honest review.
December 26, 2014
Upcoming Novels For 2015
2014 is finally coming to a close. I had a busy year, but I did manage to release 4 books this year. What were they? These little babies:
Sure, I meant to release 5, but you know what? Sometimes life throws you a curveball. A few of them. Then slaps you silly with multiple whammies.
One major problem was laptop issues and having to wipe my baby twice, then threatened to rear its ugly head for a third go. Ever had to wait ten minutes for your computer just to turn on?
Sadly, my car also went kaput. I know, I know. Being stuck at home should've actually increased my novel output, but it happened late enough in the year that I'm still having to deal with that lovely lack of transportation.
Sadly, not all writers are rich... Okay, most of us are pretty freakin' poor, so I've gotta wait until I begin my next job to afford a new one.
I also had a change in relationship status. You know how that story goes...
So I spent the better part of the last few months preparing for a move and looking for a full-time job. Needless to say, I've fallen behind a bit with my writing, so I wasn't able to get that fifth novel completed by Christmas. For those of you who have been emailing and PMing me to ask when certain stories are coming out, I promise I haven't been ignoring you. I've just been really busy. And since I know I'm going to be working this upcoming year, I'm going in with less expectations for what I can put out. So what do I hope to release in 2015? These little babies:
Stardust fans...I know, I know, I KNOW! It's been two years since Dust released. I swear I'm currently working on this. My cover designer would probably like to kill me with my defunct laptop even more than you, because this project keeps getting kicked back. Right now I hope to have this out sometime this upcoming Spring. From there I'll began working on Nearly Undone (Nearly #3) and then the second Sleepers' Coalition novel. Don't hold your breath, but if I manage to complete all that before the year is out, I might add one more.
On the bright side, I've now got my eye on a new vehicle, a full-time job waiting on my testing before I can get the green light to officially begin work, and I've got a new laptop. It's definitely more sensitive in the touch-mouse department, but for the most part, I'm getting better at using it. Just don't ask me to highlight anything for copying purposes...cause that so sucks right now. There's gotta be a trick to make it work with better odds than 1 in 5, but I'm too busy to figure it out just yet. So here's hoping the new year will a bring a better one than last year. For me and for you! Happy New Year!
Sure, I meant to release 5, but you know what? Sometimes life throws you a curveball. A few of them. Then slaps you silly with multiple whammies. One major problem was laptop issues and having to wipe my baby twice, then threatened to rear its ugly head for a third go. Ever had to wait ten minutes for your computer just to turn on?
Sadly, my car also went kaput. I know, I know. Being stuck at home should've actually increased my novel output, but it happened late enough in the year that I'm still having to deal with that lovely lack of transportation.
Sadly, not all writers are rich... Okay, most of us are pretty freakin' poor, so I've gotta wait until I begin my next job to afford a new one.
I also had a change in relationship status. You know how that story goes...
So I spent the better part of the last few months preparing for a move and looking for a full-time job. Needless to say, I've fallen behind a bit with my writing, so I wasn't able to get that fifth novel completed by Christmas. For those of you who have been emailing and PMing me to ask when certain stories are coming out, I promise I haven't been ignoring you. I've just been really busy. And since I know I'm going to be working this upcoming year, I'm going in with less expectations for what I can put out. So what do I hope to release in 2015? These little babies:
Stardust fans...I know, I know, I KNOW! It's been two years since Dust released. I swear I'm currently working on this. My cover designer would probably like to kill me with my defunct laptop even more than you, because this project keeps getting kicked back. Right now I hope to have this out sometime this upcoming Spring. From there I'll began working on Nearly Undone (Nearly #3) and then the second Sleepers' Coalition novel. Don't hold your breath, but if I manage to complete all that before the year is out, I might add one more.
On the bright side, I've now got my eye on a new vehicle, a full-time job waiting on my testing before I can get the green light to officially begin work, and I've got a new laptop. It's definitely more sensitive in the touch-mouse department, but for the most part, I'm getting better at using it. Just don't ask me to highlight anything for copying purposes...cause that so sucks right now. There's gotta be a trick to make it work with better odds than 1 in 5, but I'm too busy to figure it out just yet. So here's hoping the new year will a bring a better one than last year. For me and for you! Happy New Year!
December 22, 2014
This Shattered World by Amie Kauffman and Meagan Spooner (ARC)
This Shattered World (Starbound #2)
Amie Kauffman and Meagan Spooner
Exp. Pub.: December 23, 2014
Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac should never have met.
Lee is captain of the forces sent to Avon to crush the terraformed planet's rebellious colonists, but she has her own reasons for hating the insurgents.
Rebellion is in Flynn's blood. Terraforming corporations make their fortune by recruiting colonists to make the inhospitable planets livable, with the promise of a better life for their children. But they never fulfilled their promise on Avon, and decades later, Flynn is leading the rebellion.
Desperate for any advantage in a bloody and unrelentingly war, Flynn does the only thing that makes sense when he and Lee cross paths: he returns to base with her as prisoner. But as his fellow rebels prepare to execute this tough-talking girl with nerves of steel, Flynn makes another choice that will change him forever. He and Lee escape the rebel base together, caught between two sides of a senseless war.
This Shattered World follows two more opposites fighting it out thanks to the messed up experiments by LaRoux Industries. Flynn grew up on Avon, where their world was supposed to be terraformed to make them a more contributal planet. But decades later their world is no closer to achieving that than the day they agreed to it. The rebellion has been well underway, with Flynn's sister already dead ten years, who was once their leader. A great majority look to her brother Flynn as the next leader, but a man named McBride has an itchy trigger finger to start attacking the military and break the cease-fire. He has good reason - military personnel has to be constantly changed out every one to two months because they're susceptible to something they refer to as the Fury, where the officer loses control and goes murderous. The military tries to get them off planet in before that can happen by monitoring the signs, but sometimes it happens too fast, and native residents of Avon seem to be the only victims of this curious disease. While McBride believes it's just an excuse to kill their people, Flynn begins to believe in the possibility that something more supernatural is going on. But for the most part, his attention is more focused on a secret base he's sure he saw out east, and also on a high ranking officer named Jubilee, who seems to be immune to this so-called Fury and has been on Avon for a year now. Surely she has the knowledge he seeks. Desperate for answers and to stop McBride from convincing his own people to attack the better equipped military, he seizes the opportunity to abduct Jubilee off base. But she holds no answers for him, or at least isn't willing to share them. And when his plan to trade her for supplies is rejected, he knows killing her will only unleash the military's wrath, so he goes against his people and allows her to escape. Ready to go after the rebel leader who abducted her, certain events take place that begin to make Jubilee question the things Flynn interrogated her about, and as both their worlds become more deadly, two sworn enemies soon realize working together is their best chance for saving both sides.
This was a good follow-up to These Broken Stars, which I absolutely loved. Flynn and Jubilee didn't win my heart as much as their predesecors, but I still adored them by the end. And before you ask, yes, you'll get to see Tarver and Lilac again, who have an intimate knowledge at dealing with the shady side of LaRoux industries, but only for a small percentage of the novel. But if you loved the first novel of the Starbound series, you'll love the second one too.
ARC provided by Disney-Hyperion for honest review.
Amie Kauffman and Meagan Spooner
Exp. Pub.: December 23, 2014
Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac should never have met.Lee is captain of the forces sent to Avon to crush the terraformed planet's rebellious colonists, but she has her own reasons for hating the insurgents.
Rebellion is in Flynn's blood. Terraforming corporations make their fortune by recruiting colonists to make the inhospitable planets livable, with the promise of a better life for their children. But they never fulfilled their promise on Avon, and decades later, Flynn is leading the rebellion.
Desperate for any advantage in a bloody and unrelentingly war, Flynn does the only thing that makes sense when he and Lee cross paths: he returns to base with her as prisoner. But as his fellow rebels prepare to execute this tough-talking girl with nerves of steel, Flynn makes another choice that will change him forever. He and Lee escape the rebel base together, caught between two sides of a senseless war.
This Shattered World follows two more opposites fighting it out thanks to the messed up experiments by LaRoux Industries. Flynn grew up on Avon, where their world was supposed to be terraformed to make them a more contributal planet. But decades later their world is no closer to achieving that than the day they agreed to it. The rebellion has been well underway, with Flynn's sister already dead ten years, who was once their leader. A great majority look to her brother Flynn as the next leader, but a man named McBride has an itchy trigger finger to start attacking the military and break the cease-fire. He has good reason - military personnel has to be constantly changed out every one to two months because they're susceptible to something they refer to as the Fury, where the officer loses control and goes murderous. The military tries to get them off planet in before that can happen by monitoring the signs, but sometimes it happens too fast, and native residents of Avon seem to be the only victims of this curious disease. While McBride believes it's just an excuse to kill their people, Flynn begins to believe in the possibility that something more supernatural is going on. But for the most part, his attention is more focused on a secret base he's sure he saw out east, and also on a high ranking officer named Jubilee, who seems to be immune to this so-called Fury and has been on Avon for a year now. Surely she has the knowledge he seeks. Desperate for answers and to stop McBride from convincing his own people to attack the better equipped military, he seizes the opportunity to abduct Jubilee off base. But she holds no answers for him, or at least isn't willing to share them. And when his plan to trade her for supplies is rejected, he knows killing her will only unleash the military's wrath, so he goes against his people and allows her to escape. Ready to go after the rebel leader who abducted her, certain events take place that begin to make Jubilee question the things Flynn interrogated her about, and as both their worlds become more deadly, two sworn enemies soon realize working together is their best chance for saving both sides.
This was a good follow-up to These Broken Stars, which I absolutely loved. Flynn and Jubilee didn't win my heart as much as their predesecors, but I still adored them by the end. And before you ask, yes, you'll get to see Tarver and Lilac again, who have an intimate knowledge at dealing with the shady side of LaRoux industries, but only for a small percentage of the novel. But if you loved the first novel of the Starbound series, you'll love the second one too.
ARC provided by Disney-Hyperion for honest review.
December 21, 2014
$15 Gift Card Giveaway
You guys know it's word of mouth that really helps a book succeed. I've got thousands of reviews on GoodReads but they're kind of low at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Kobo. So, for this giveaway, all you have to do is CUT AND PASTE your reviews and get them up on any of the selling platforms FOR ANY OF MY NOVELS. All you have to do is go to my facebook post to leave a comment telling me which book you reviewed, your reviewer name, and which platform you put it on (Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Kobo). This giveaway will end January 5th, so you have two weeks to get them copied over! YES - you can have multiple entries if you do this for more than one novel. My only request is that each review be at least fifty words long and reflect the book itself, not simply state how awesome I am. (Though I appreciate all who truly mean it ) ツ
NetGalley users: two of my novels are currently READ NOW if you'd like to check them out and read them for review by the deadline. Just go here to download.
NetGalley users: two of my novels are currently READ NOW if you'd like to check them out and read them for review by the deadline. Just go here to download.
December 11, 2014
A Darker Past by Jus Accardo (ARC)
A Darker Past (Darker Agency #2)
Jus Accardo
Pub: November 11, 2014
The past is Darker than they thought...
Between helping her mother with the Darker Agency and laying the smack down on monster baddies, Jessie Darker puts the “normal” in paranormal. But lately, things have gotten a little crazy...even for a smart-assed half-demon teenage girl.
For starters, Jessie’s been contracted into fifty-five years of annoying servitude. To a demon. Then there’s Lukas Scott, her sexy new boyfriend. Once the former incarnation of Wrath, he’s been going through some...uh, changes. Like residual anger. And trading chaste hangouts for lusty make-out sessions.
But it’s when Lukas and Jessie accidentally release a Very Nasty Demon that things get really bad, setting into motion a chain of death and mayhem that threatens both Earth and the Shadow Realm. Jessie has exactly four days to fix it...before all of Hell breaks loose.
First off, I'll admit I haven't read the first in this series, but I didn't let that deter me from diving right in. I loved Jessie's sarcasm, especially in the first quarter of the book. Her snarkiness seemed to fade a bit from there, but she occasionally graced me with something sassy to lift my mood. Her boyfriend Lukas is recovering from being Wrath's b*tch for way too long, forced there by his crazy ex, and is now under the tutelage of Jessie's Father in hell, but can go back and forth freely. Well, mostly freely like Jessie, who finds herself being sucked into hell every the demon she's now in servitude to decides to beckon her to his semi-creepy side to do a job for him.
While checking out something for her family's demon agency, Lukas' crazy ghost of an ex goes mental and ends up setting loose a demon that had been trapped. And since Jessie's family had a hand in putting him there, he unleashes his vengeance on every member of the Darker family and the ones they love. Who will survive his wrath before he can be trapped again?
A Darker Past started off strong and was a decent story, though it began to drag for me about half way through. I think that might've just been me though. I was enjoying Jessie's sarcastic thoughts so well, that when her sassiness began to fade a bit, it made the story come off a little more ho-hum for me. But I think most people who like this genre will be more than happy with Miss Accardo's world of demons. And romance lovers will be sated with the lustful-yet-still-respectful relationship between Jessie and Lukas, who find being similar in the fact that they're both demon-newbies just a little stressful on the ole love life.
3.5 Dreamcatchers. ARC provided by Entangled Teen for honest review.
Jus Accardo
Pub: November 11, 2014
The past is Darker than they thought...Between helping her mother with the Darker Agency and laying the smack down on monster baddies, Jessie Darker puts the “normal” in paranormal. But lately, things have gotten a little crazy...even for a smart-assed half-demon teenage girl.
For starters, Jessie’s been contracted into fifty-five years of annoying servitude. To a demon. Then there’s Lukas Scott, her sexy new boyfriend. Once the former incarnation of Wrath, he’s been going through some...uh, changes. Like residual anger. And trading chaste hangouts for lusty make-out sessions.
But it’s when Lukas and Jessie accidentally release a Very Nasty Demon that things get really bad, setting into motion a chain of death and mayhem that threatens both Earth and the Shadow Realm. Jessie has exactly four days to fix it...before all of Hell breaks loose.
First off, I'll admit I haven't read the first in this series, but I didn't let that deter me from diving right in. I loved Jessie's sarcasm, especially in the first quarter of the book. Her snarkiness seemed to fade a bit from there, but she occasionally graced me with something sassy to lift my mood. Her boyfriend Lukas is recovering from being Wrath's b*tch for way too long, forced there by his crazy ex, and is now under the tutelage of Jessie's Father in hell, but can go back and forth freely. Well, mostly freely like Jessie, who finds herself being sucked into hell every the demon she's now in servitude to decides to beckon her to his semi-creepy side to do a job for him.
While checking out something for her family's demon agency, Lukas' crazy ghost of an ex goes mental and ends up setting loose a demon that had been trapped. And since Jessie's family had a hand in putting him there, he unleashes his vengeance on every member of the Darker family and the ones they love. Who will survive his wrath before he can be trapped again?
A Darker Past started off strong and was a decent story, though it began to drag for me about half way through. I think that might've just been me though. I was enjoying Jessie's sarcastic thoughts so well, that when her sassiness began to fade a bit, it made the story come off a little more ho-hum for me. But I think most people who like this genre will be more than happy with Miss Accardo's world of demons. And romance lovers will be sated with the lustful-yet-still-respectful relationship between Jessie and Lukas, who find being similar in the fact that they're both demon-newbies just a little stressful on the ole love life.
3.5 Dreamcatchers. ARC provided by Entangled Teen for honest review.
December 6, 2014
This Is Your Afterlife by Vanessa Barneveld (ARC)
This Is Your Afterlife
Vanessa Barneveld
Pub.: October 21, 2014
When the one boy you crushed on in life can't seem to stay away in death, it's hard to be a normal teen when you're a teen paranormal.
Sixteen-year-old Keira Nolan has finally got what she wanted—the captain of the football team in her bedroom. Problem is he’s not in the flesh. He’s a ghost and she’s the only one who can see him.
Keira's determined to do anything to find Jimmy's killer. Even it if means teaming up with his prickly-yet-dangerously-attractive brother, Dan, also Keira's ex-best-friend. Keira finds that her childish crush is fading, but her feelings for Dan are just starting to heat up, and as the story of Jimmy’s murder unfolds, anyone could be a suspect.
This thrilling debut from Vanessa Barneveld crosses over from our world to the next, and brings a whole delightful new meaning to "teen spirit".
Keira Nolan seems to face the problem most teenagers do in high school. No, not the ghost thing, but the part where she always had such a crush on one guy she didn't realize there was another worth having until it was too late. Jimmy was the star athlete every girl wanted, but it was his artistic brother Dan who had eyes for Keira. And when her best friend tried to kiss her for that lovely game of Seven Minutes in Heaven, Keira blurted the stupidest thing possible - next thing she knew, she'd lost her best friend and the guy she aparently had a thing for.
A few years later, Keira's finally inheriting her late grandmother's gift - the ability to see dead people. And her first official ghost sighting? None other than Jimmy himself, who can't remember how he died, nor can he seem to keep himself grounded the farther he travels away from Keira. So not only will Keira have to help Jimmy figure out how he mysteriously died, but he's begged her to tell his brother he's still around. Wouldn't be such a feat if he didn't hate her so much. It's been a while since I read a YA book that was this cute and kept my attention because of that. Don't get me wrong, the story was simple and I figured out right away why Jimmy died, but it didn't bother me moving forward with the novel. Let's just call This Is Your Afterlife simple and sweet. If you need a light, easy read that'll make you smile and come down from one of the more emotionally heavy novels out there, this is your gem.
ARC provided by Bloomsbury Spark for honest review.
Vanessa Barneveld
Pub.: October 21, 2014
When the one boy you crushed on in life can't seem to stay away in death, it's hard to be a normal teen when you're a teen paranormal.Sixteen-year-old Keira Nolan has finally got what she wanted—the captain of the football team in her bedroom. Problem is he’s not in the flesh. He’s a ghost and she’s the only one who can see him.
Keira's determined to do anything to find Jimmy's killer. Even it if means teaming up with his prickly-yet-dangerously-attractive brother, Dan, also Keira's ex-best-friend. Keira finds that her childish crush is fading, but her feelings for Dan are just starting to heat up, and as the story of Jimmy’s murder unfolds, anyone could be a suspect.
This thrilling debut from Vanessa Barneveld crosses over from our world to the next, and brings a whole delightful new meaning to "teen spirit".
Keira Nolan seems to face the problem most teenagers do in high school. No, not the ghost thing, but the part where she always had such a crush on one guy she didn't realize there was another worth having until it was too late. Jimmy was the star athlete every girl wanted, but it was his artistic brother Dan who had eyes for Keira. And when her best friend tried to kiss her for that lovely game of Seven Minutes in Heaven, Keira blurted the stupidest thing possible - next thing she knew, she'd lost her best friend and the guy she aparently had a thing for.
A few years later, Keira's finally inheriting her late grandmother's gift - the ability to see dead people. And her first official ghost sighting? None other than Jimmy himself, who can't remember how he died, nor can he seem to keep himself grounded the farther he travels away from Keira. So not only will Keira have to help Jimmy figure out how he mysteriously died, but he's begged her to tell his brother he's still around. Wouldn't be such a feat if he didn't hate her so much. It's been a while since I read a YA book that was this cute and kept my attention because of that. Don't get me wrong, the story was simple and I figured out right away why Jimmy died, but it didn't bother me moving forward with the novel. Let's just call This Is Your Afterlife simple and sweet. If you need a light, easy read that'll make you smile and come down from one of the more emotionally heavy novels out there, this is your gem.
ARC provided by Bloomsbury Spark for honest review.
November 26, 2014
Anomaly by Tonya Kuper (ARC)
Anomaly (Schrodinger's Consortium #1)
Tonya Kuper
Pub.: Nov 25, 2014
Reality is only an illusion.
Except for those who can control it…
Worst. Birthday. Ever.
My first boyfriend dumped me – happy birthday, Josie!- my dad is who knows where, I have some weird virus that makes me want to hurl, and now my ex is licking another girl’s tonsils. Oh, and I’m officially the same age as my brother was when he died. Yeah, today is about as fun-filled as the swamps of Dagobah. But then weird things start happening…
Like I make something materialize just by thinking about it.
When hot badass Reid Wentworth shows up on a motorcycle, everything changes. Like, everything. Who I am. My family. What really happened to my brother. Existence. I am Oculi, and I have the ability to change reality with my thoughts. Now Reid, in all his hotness, is charged with guiding and protecting me as I begin learning how to bend reality. And he’s the only thing standing between me and the secret organization that wants me dead…
Hmm. Anomaly was just okay for me; didn't love it, didn't hate it. I will say that I enjoyed the geekiness of Josie and the way she could refer to stories like Star Wars and Thor and compare them to the new version of her everyday life. I also liked that her superpower involved pushing and retracting objects in and out of existence. Definitely a cool ability to have. But the storyline of girl with new abilities training and falling for her hot new trainer has become a bit of a bore for me - I've read it too many times already, so it made the story really drag on until the last fifteen percent. She just spent way too much of this novel learning how to push things into reality. I prefer to read about spontaneous conflict, not the manufactured kind to teach a new skill. Give it a go if you like, and so long as you don't go in expecting to be blown away, you'll probably be content enough with Anomaly. 2.5 Dreamcatchers.
ARC provided by Entangled Publishing for honest review.
Tonya Kuper
Pub.: Nov 25, 2014
Reality is only an illusion.Except for those who can control it…
Worst. Birthday. Ever.
My first boyfriend dumped me – happy birthday, Josie!- my dad is who knows where, I have some weird virus that makes me want to hurl, and now my ex is licking another girl’s tonsils. Oh, and I’m officially the same age as my brother was when he died. Yeah, today is about as fun-filled as the swamps of Dagobah. But then weird things start happening…
Like I make something materialize just by thinking about it.
When hot badass Reid Wentworth shows up on a motorcycle, everything changes. Like, everything. Who I am. My family. What really happened to my brother. Existence. I am Oculi, and I have the ability to change reality with my thoughts. Now Reid, in all his hotness, is charged with guiding and protecting me as I begin learning how to bend reality. And he’s the only thing standing between me and the secret organization that wants me dead…
Hmm. Anomaly was just okay for me; didn't love it, didn't hate it. I will say that I enjoyed the geekiness of Josie and the way she could refer to stories like Star Wars and Thor and compare them to the new version of her everyday life. I also liked that her superpower involved pushing and retracting objects in and out of existence. Definitely a cool ability to have. But the storyline of girl with new abilities training and falling for her hot new trainer has become a bit of a bore for me - I've read it too many times already, so it made the story really drag on until the last fifteen percent. She just spent way too much of this novel learning how to push things into reality. I prefer to read about spontaneous conflict, not the manufactured kind to teach a new skill. Give it a go if you like, and so long as you don't go in expecting to be blown away, you'll probably be content enough with Anomaly. 2.5 Dreamcatchers.
ARC provided by Entangled Publishing for honest review.
November 12, 2014
The Body Electric by Beth Revis (ARC)
The Body Electric
Beth Revis
Pub.: October 6, 2014
The future world is at peace.
Ella Shepherd has dedicated her life to using her unique gift—the ability to enter people’s dreams and memories using technology developed by her mother—to help others relive their happy memories.
But not all is at it seems.
Ella starts seeing impossible things—images of her dead father, warnings of who she cannot trust. Her government recruits her to spy on a rebel group, using her ability to experience—and influence—the memories of traitors. But the leader of the rebels claims they used to be in love—even though Ella’s never met him before in her life. Which can only mean one thing…
Someone’s altered her memory.
Ella’s gift is enough to overthrow a corrupt government or crush a growing rebel group. She is the key to stopping a war she didn’t even know was happening. But if someone else has been inside Ella’s head, she cannot trust her own memories, thoughts, or feelings.
So who can she trust?
Ella's life wasn't completely easy. Her father died in a terrorist attack and her mother has an incurable illness that's slowly withering her away. Ella soon learns that her mother's invention - a machine that allows users to relive their happiest memories - no longer works to give her mother peace. So Ella doses herself with an insane amount of nanobots to allow herself to hook up and help her mother through the process. But now her body seems to be able to do things she never should've been able to, like staying underwater for way too long without breathing.
Once the government realizes what Ella can do with her mother's machine, they enlist her help to read the mind of a man they suspect is aiding a terrorist organization. The internal hacking leads Ella to the name of a man who used to work for her father, who is also suspected of leading the terrorist group. But when Ella finally comes face to face and mind to mind with him, she discovers the awful truth - that not only does that man have intimate moments of the two of them together that she can't remember, but that he nor the government leader she's been aiding are what they seem. I really enjoyed Beth Revis' Across the Universe books, so I figured I'd probably really like The Body Electric too. This dystopian society relies heavily on technology to advance their lives, hence the nanobots circulating their systems. Ella thought she had a relatively low number, but soon learns that she has way more than she thought possible without suffering from bot brain, which basically makes your body go kaput. And once she learns it's probably because of her own father's research, her life will never be the same.
Reading through this, there were a few things that were obviously coming, and a few things that actually surprised me - and I'm hard to surprise. I think my one dissapointment was with the ending and its lack of closure on the romance front. It was left in a way that wasn't satisfying for me. These two characters had a past and I would've liked to see them acknowledge it a little more and choose a path before cutting me off, but other than that it was a pretty interesting novel. So if you're into mystery science fiction, this is a pretty good one to pick up. 3.5 dreamcatchers.
ARC provided by Scripturient Books for honest review.
Beth Revis
Pub.: October 6, 2014
The future world is at peace.Ella Shepherd has dedicated her life to using her unique gift—the ability to enter people’s dreams and memories using technology developed by her mother—to help others relive their happy memories.
But not all is at it seems.
Ella starts seeing impossible things—images of her dead father, warnings of who she cannot trust. Her government recruits her to spy on a rebel group, using her ability to experience—and influence—the memories of traitors. But the leader of the rebels claims they used to be in love—even though Ella’s never met him before in her life. Which can only mean one thing…
Someone’s altered her memory.
Ella’s gift is enough to overthrow a corrupt government or crush a growing rebel group. She is the key to stopping a war she didn’t even know was happening. But if someone else has been inside Ella’s head, she cannot trust her own memories, thoughts, or feelings.
So who can she trust?
Ella's life wasn't completely easy. Her father died in a terrorist attack and her mother has an incurable illness that's slowly withering her away. Ella soon learns that her mother's invention - a machine that allows users to relive their happiest memories - no longer works to give her mother peace. So Ella doses herself with an insane amount of nanobots to allow herself to hook up and help her mother through the process. But now her body seems to be able to do things she never should've been able to, like staying underwater for way too long without breathing.
Once the government realizes what Ella can do with her mother's machine, they enlist her help to read the mind of a man they suspect is aiding a terrorist organization. The internal hacking leads Ella to the name of a man who used to work for her father, who is also suspected of leading the terrorist group. But when Ella finally comes face to face and mind to mind with him, she discovers the awful truth - that not only does that man have intimate moments of the two of them together that she can't remember, but that he nor the government leader she's been aiding are what they seem. I really enjoyed Beth Revis' Across the Universe books, so I figured I'd probably really like The Body Electric too. This dystopian society relies heavily on technology to advance their lives, hence the nanobots circulating their systems. Ella thought she had a relatively low number, but soon learns that she has way more than she thought possible without suffering from bot brain, which basically makes your body go kaput. And once she learns it's probably because of her own father's research, her life will never be the same.
Reading through this, there were a few things that were obviously coming, and a few things that actually surprised me - and I'm hard to surprise. I think my one dissapointment was with the ending and its lack of closure on the romance front. It was left in a way that wasn't satisfying for me. These two characters had a past and I would've liked to see them acknowledge it a little more and choose a path before cutting me off, but other than that it was a pretty interesting novel. So if you're into mystery science fiction, this is a pretty good one to pick up. 3.5 dreamcatchers.
ARC provided by Scripturient Books for honest review.
