Gretchen C. Hohmeyer's Blog, page 74
March 15, 2013
ARC Review: “Moonset” by Scott Tracey
Moonset (Legacy of Moonset #1) by Scott Tracey
Justin Daggett, his trouble-making sister, and their three orphan-witch friends have gotten themselves kicked out of high school. Again. Now they’ve ended up in Carrow Mills, New York, the town where their parents—members of the terrorist witch organization known as Moonset—began their evil experiments with the dark arts one generation ago.
When the siblings are accused of unleashing black magic on the town, Justin fights to prove their innocence. But tracking down the true culprit leads him to a terrifying discovery about Moonset’s past . . . and its deadly future.
2 stars
Thank you to Flux and NetGalley for this eARC! This title will be available April 8th.
This review was completed by guest reviewer Sarah from Adventures in Storyland! Thank you, Sarah!
“Moonset. The name we’d inherited from our parents, now a slur as bad as any other four letter word. Even fifteen years after their death, people didn’t use the word Moonset lightly.
Because of it, we had people like Miss Virago, following us around. Waiting for the mistake that would push us over the edge from ‘innocent’ to ‘dangerous.’
Waiting for the day they could kill us, too.”
Moonset follows five teenagers, the surviving children of a cult behind a lethal uprising in the magical community. They’re cared for by the magic government, constantly moved around from town to town and school to school, and are generally mistrusted because of their heritage. This first novel in a series involves the teens getting trapped into a plot to draw out a warlock, and it’s entirely possible that no one cares whether or not they live through the attempt.
Moonset starts off rocky and then pretty much continues to be rocky right up until the rocky end. It’s not a bad book, it just didn’t really catch my attention. I had trouble connecting to any of the characters, and flat-out hated others. The protagonist, Justin, was okay but he never interested me that much. His twin, Jenna, is a bratty diva with anger issues that I spent the entire book wanting to punch. The other siblings mostly fade into the background. The love interest, Ash, is squashed into the role of manic pixie dream girl for most of the novel.
The plot is okay, but everything moves rather slowly. There’s a lot of talking and thinking and people not trusting them, but between the first chapter and the last half of the book, not a lot of action. Luckily, the magic system and world-building of this magic community are actually pretty awesome. I was really interested in learning about how their magic works and it’s pretty cool.
Basically, if you’re into magic teens and some political mayhem, you’d probably dig the book. I initially gave it a 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, but I think I’m going to downgrade to 2 out of 5 stars. It didn’t keep me nearly interested enough.
March 14, 2013
ARC Review: “Renegade” by Amy Carol Reeves
Renegade (Ripper #2) by Amy Carol Reeves
Brimming with romance and danger, the suspenseful Ripper series continues
The Conclave—a secret group with twisted ideals and freakish practices—has been wiped out, thanks to Arabella Sharp. Now there’s a new malevolence afoot. Fishermen are getting killed, their partially devoured bodies washing up on the shores of Scotland. Is the Ripper responsible? Or have the Conclave’s sinister experiments left behind something more monstrous? Abbie fears the worst when her beloved Dr. William Siddal vanishes. To save the man she loves, Abbie must comply with the Ripper’s dreadful orders—and put her own life in grave danger.
3 stars
Thanks to NetGalley and Flux for this eARC! This title will be released April 8th.
This review was completed by guest reviewer Sarah from Adventures in Storyland! Thank you, Sarah!
(Note: This is a review for the second book in a series. It contains spoilers for the first book, Ripper.)
“I saw bubbles in the greenish depths of water somewhere. A creature, dragon-like, with a tail. Claws. In the murky water, I saw the creature’s scaly haunches, thick and muscular like a lioness’s, as my nostrils became overwhelmed with the smell of fish, of seaweed. The monster had hair, long hazelnut hair billowing out like burnt gold threads in the water. I saw the swift, fleshy movements of breasts. I gasped and the dream left me almost as soon as it appeared.”
I wondered where the Ripper series could go after all of Jack the Ripper’s canonical victims had been killed in the first book. The killer lived, but I was still uncertain. As the series is called Ripper, I assumed it would stay within that realm. Instead, it goes off the charts. other than the continued interest of an inspector, the Ripper case is left behind. Renegade concentrates instead on the experiments done by the Conclave. In the quote above, Abbie experiences a vision of a lamia created by the Conclave’s experiments. There are also zombies of some sort, but that thread disappears about halfway through the book and never really comes back. I can only assume it will be used in the third book.
It’s easy for a YA period book to slap the reader across the face with how very different and radical the female protagonist is, and how all other women are sheep. Renegade avoids this. It’s certainly acknowledged that Abbie’s desire to be a doctor will be difficult since few medical programs admit women, but it’s mostly taken in stride. She’s an intelligent nurse with a dedication to her patients that wants to go to medical school, and that’s accepted. Other women aren’t insulted or shamed to make her look good. It’s refreshing.
The major annoyance for me in Renegade was Abbie’s love life. Early on in the book, she discovers that William, her major love interest from Ripper, had slept with a woman nearly twice his age that had once been his father’s mistress. This was before he ever met Abbie and took place at a tumultuous time in her life, but Abbie is furious and feels betrayed. She decides that she can’t trust William and that he’ll probably just be a philanderer like his father, so she ends their relationship and then spends a lot of time thinking about how very, very hurt she is. I was thrilled when she slapped William for saying, “After all, I’m a man,” as a reason for his affair, but that was the one bright point. I got so sick of hearing about it that I could feel my eyes and brain glazing over.
Chapters from the lamia Seraphina’s point of view were a welcome break from Abbie’s whining about William. Monster ladies are kind of the best, and this one was complex and interesting. She hungers for human flesh, but because she loves her human master and is loyal to the Conclave, she keeps her appetites at bay. She’s in charge of caring for the Conclave’s menagerie, and does so with great dedication. She loves the animals dearly. She’s a painter who never finishes her work. She lives alone on an island, isolated, waiting for the times when her master will return and struggling to keep a feeding frenzy at bay. It was fascinating to watch her development as a character. I could have read an entire book about her and done without Abbie altogether.
All in all, if you enjoyed Ripper, you’ll probably enjoy Renegade, if not like it more. I know I had a lot more fun with it than I did with its predecessor. I gave it 3 out of 5 stars. The writing wasn’t great, but it kept me entertained.
February 27, 2013
Leap into Books Giveaway Hop!
This giveaway hop is hosted by I’m a Reader, Not a Writer and Jinky is Reading!
Hey guys! So, it’s been FOREVER since I’ve been concious enough to do one of these things, because OHMYGOD LIFE GUYS. But I really wanted to do this one because … I miss you all. And plus, I know how you all enjoy giveaways. 
For this one, I have something very special…
A MYSTERY BOX!
That’s right! I’m not going to tell you what’s in it. I can tell you, however, that it will be FILLED with fantasy and sci fi titles. Not all of these will be YA. But there will be FIVE titles in this box, and all of them are awesome.
This giveaway is US only and ends midnight EST on March 7th. If you want to enter, this is a a Rafflecopter giveaway!
February 22, 2013
Review: “The Indigo Spell” by Richelle Mead
The Indigo Spell (Bloodlines #3) by Richelle Mead
In the aftermath of a forbidden moment that rocked Sydney to her core, she finds herself struggling to draw the line between her Alchemist teachings and what her heart is urging her to do. Then she meets alluring, rebellious Marcus Finch–a former Alchemist who escaped against all odds, and is now on the run. Marcus wants to teach Sydney the secrets he claims the Alchemists are hiding from her. But as he pushes her to rebel against the people who raised her, Sydney finds that breaking free is harder than she thought. There is an old and mysterious magic rooted deeply within her. And as she searches for an evil magic user targeting powerful young witches, she realizes that her only hope is to embrace her magical blood–or else she might be next.
Populated with new faces as well as familiar ones, the Bloodlines series explores all the friendship, romance, battles, and betrayals that made the #1 New York Times bestselling Vampire Academy series so addictive—this time in a part-vampire, part-human setting where the stakes are even higher and everyone’s out for blood.
Four stars
WARNING: If you haven’t read the first two books, there WILL be spoilers!
Please check out my reviews of Bloodlines and The Golden Lily for more of my thoughts!
There was almost nothing more important to me than getting my hands on this book. I mean, guys. It’s Richelle Mead. It’s Adrian. It’s Sydney. Despite my initial misgivings about this series, these two won me way over from the get go. I was good with Bloodlines, great with The Golden Lily. Sadly, despite the Adrian and Sydney scenes that I wanted, I have to say I’m back to being just good with The Indigo Spell.
The Indigo Spell starts off only short time after the great cliffhanger of The Golden Lily. Adrian and Sydney are acting all of the awkward, which is making Jill turn away from Sydney while Eddie and Angeline are off in their own little world. Sydney’s witch teacher is worried about a powerful, evil new witch in town and is obsessed with finding her, while Sydney is obsessed with finding Marcus. Adrian’s just obsessed with getting Sydney to see the obvious.
Let me just say, first off, that the Adrian/Sydney dynamic is the most adorable thing ever. You could say many things about Rose/Dimitri, but you could never really use the word “adorable.” Mead does a FANTASTIC job characterizing their relationship and their interactions with each other. Each action seems genuine and sincere. Every single scene with the two of them in it tugs my heart strings every which way. They aren’t just great as a couple; they’re great friends, too, and it shows. They really do act in a partnership, constantly making the other better. I should probably stop now before I just explode with happiness about these two.
My real problem with this book came in terms of the plot. There is just WAY too much going on. Sydney is after Marcus. Her professor is after a powerful witch who just happens to be her sister who just happens to be sucking the life force out of young, female witches. Adrian is after Sydney. Sydney is trying to figure the Alchemists out for real. In the background you have Jill still mooning over Eddie and Eddie and Angeline having interesting problems. The different plots overlap in such a way that much of the characterization outside of Adrian and Sydney is entirely lost. You barely see Eddie, Jill and Angeline at all, and when you do Sydney is basically pushing them away. She knows there’s too much going on to deal with them. The different plot lines are constantly trying to push the other one out of the way until you can’t tell which one you should really be focusing on. In the end, the plots peter out in such a way that it feels like they were never important to begin with. The only thing holding the whole book together is the fact that Sydney and Adrian get to spend a LOT of time together.
I understand that as a middle book in a series, Mead had to throw a bunch of new plot in to reinvigorate the story, but I really missed the group dynamic that was prevalent in the first two books. Even the ending cliffhanger wasn’t as entirely engaging as the last ones. (Although, how do you top The Golden Lily, really?) Nothing particularly exciting or unexpected happened, as far as I was concerned, but I still really enjoyed it. Fans of Adrian and Sydney will NOT be disappointed. (Oh, and Rose and Dimitri fans will be happy to know we got another cameo!)
Book 4 in the Bloodlines series, The Fiery Heart, will be released on November 19th, 2013!
February 20, 2013
Blog Tour: “Broken Wings” by Shannon Dittemore – Promo Post + Giveaway!
Welcome to my stop on the Broken Wings blog tour hosted by YA Bound . Click HERE to see the full blog tour schedule!
***
Angel Eyes
(Angel Eyes Trilogy #1)
Once you’ve seen, you can’t unsee. Everything changes when you’ve looked at the world through . . .
ANGEL EYES
Brielle’s a ballerina who went to the city to chase her dreams and found tragedy instead. She’s come home to shabby little Stratus, Oregon, to live with her grief and her guilt . . . and the incredible, numbing cold she can’t seem to shake.
Jake’s the new guy at school. The boy next door with burning hands and an unbelievable gift that targets him for corruption.
Something more than fate has brought them together. An evil bigger than both of them lurks in the shadows nearby, hiding in plain sight. Two angels stand guard, unsure what’s going to happen. And a beauty brighter than Jake or Brielle has ever seen is calling them to join the battle in a realm where all human choices start.
A realm that only angels and demons—and Brielle—can perceive.
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble
Broken Wings
(Angel Eyes Trilogy #2)
Giant angels with metal wings and visible song. A blind demon restored from the pit of darkness. And a girl who has never felt more broken.
Brielle sees the world as it really is: a place where the Celestial exists side by side with human reality. But in the aftermath of a supernatural showdown, her life begins to crumble. Her boyfriend, Jake, is keeping something from her—something important. Her overprotective father has started drinking again. He’s dating a much younger woman who makes Brielle’s skin crawl, and he’s downright hostile toward Jake. Haunting nightmares keep Brielle from sleeping, and flashes of Celestial vision keep her off kilter.
What she doesn’t know is that she’s been targeted. The Prince of Darkness himself has heard of the boy with healing in his hands and of the girl who sees through the Terrestrial Veil. When he plucks the blind demon, Damien, from the fiery chasm and sends him back to Earth with new eyes, the stage is set for a cataclysmic battle of good versus evil.
Then Brielle unearths the truth about her mother’s death and she must question everything she ever thought was true.
Brielle has no choice. She knows evil forces are converging and will soon rain their terror down upon the town of Stratus. She must master the weapons she’s been given. She must fight.
But can she fly with broken wings?
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble
About the Author
Shannon Dittemore has an overactive imagination and a passion for truth. Her lifelong journey to combine the two is responsible for a stint at Portland Bible College, performances with local theater companies, and a focus on youth and young adult ministry. The daughter of one preacher and the wife of another, she spends her days imagining things unseen and chasing her two children around their home in Northern California. Angel Eyes is her first novel.
Website / Twitter / Goodreads / Facebook / Pinterest
***PROMO POST***
An excerpt from Broken Wings…
Silence consumes the assembly now, imposed on them by the sight of an icy white figure dropping into the hall from above. His wings, spread wide, are white save the tips, which retain a char he’s never rid of.
Black-tipped wings for the Prince of Darkness. Healthy wings. Strong wings. His skin shines like polished marble. His hair lies in curls of midnight around his face—still fresh, still bright, still retaining the beauty that seduced a third of the angels. Human eyes would have a hard time distinguishing the Prince from a Warrior like Michael. But the absence of light behind those pale blue eyes hints at the creature’s true nature. And they are pale, so pale the blue seems buried far below, glinting like coins at the bottom of a well.
He’s exquisite. Majestic.
And he’s afraid.
Celestial light has been banned from this place, but even here among the arctic shadows, fear cannot hide. Its blackness swirls in a controlled spin down his right arm, over his well-formed bicep, around his elbow, circling around his forearm and sliding from his palm down his middle finger where it puddles beneath his throne. Tendrils branch out across the stone floor seeking, seeking.
He cups his hand, allowing the fear to pool there. His fingers close around the sticky substance and he prods it, molds it like a human child playing with a handful of clay. All the while, his eyes rip into the demon before him.
After a slow descent, the Prince’s feet touch upon the seat of his throne—the graven dragon behind him. His legs and waist are wrapped in cords of white. His torso and arms are bare. Very little separates him from the other archangels. And yet so much.
Pearla watches the Prince. The Creator gave him beauty—a beauty unrivaled—and he’s taken great pains to preserve it. His time here in Abaddon has kept him from the damage his hordes have suffered in the light of the Celestial. Pearla’s heard stories of the Prince venturing above, but his untarnished appearance alone is proof that his time to heal greatly exceeds that of his minions.
“Sit.” His celestial lips are still, unable to vocalize anything but animalistic rages—like those assembled, like the demon chained to the floor, like every angel he led astray—but they all hear. They all obey. It’s sad, really. His song, like his face, was far superior to all others. Now his mouth is good for nothing.
Wings rustle and talons scratch as countless demons crawl and flap toward rough shelves cut into the cliffs surrounding the hall. The demon chained to the floor drops to his knees.
Humility, even false humility, is appreciated here.
The Prince doesn’t sit, though. No. He stands on his throne, his legs spread wide, looking down at the demon trembling on the floor.
“It’s unfortunate, brother, to see you in chains. Again.”
***GIVEAWAY***
(1) Print copies of Angel Eyes and Broken Wings (US Only)
(5) Print copies of Broken Wings (US only)
CLICK HERE TO ENTER!
February 18, 2013
Blog Tour: “Pieces” by Michelle Davidson Argyle – Guest Post!
Welcome to the Pieces Blog Tour, hosted by Xpresso Book Tours! Don’t forget to check out the full schedule of events HERE!
First, let’s get some background on this series!!
The Breakaway
by Michelle Davidson Argyle
When Naomi Jensen is kidnapped, it takes her parents two days to realize she’s missing. Escape isn’t high on her list of priorities when all she has to return to is an abusive boyfriend and parents who never paid much attention to her. For the first time in her life she’s part of a family—even if it is a family of criminals. But she’s still a captive. In a desperate attempt to regain some control in her life, Naomi embarks on a dangerous plan to make one of her kidnappers think she’s falling in love with him. The plan works too well, and when faced with the chance to escape, Naomi isn’t sure she wants to take it.
Pieces by Michelle Davidson Argyle
Two years after watching her kidnappers go to prison, Naomi Jensen is still in love with one of them. Jesse will be released in a few years, and Naomi knows college is the perfect distraction while she waits. But when her new friend Finn makes her question what is right and what is wrong, she begins to wonder if Jesse is the one for her … until she discovers he’s out on parole. Naomi must sort through her confusion to figure out where love and freedom truly lie—in Finn, who has no connections to her past, or Jesse, who has just asked her to run away with him.
Pieces is a companion to The Breakaway and can be read independently, if desired.
And now, introducing author Michelle Davidson Argyle!
Michelle lives and writes in Utah, surrounded by the Rocky Mountains. She loves the seasons, but late summer and early fall are her favorites. She adores chocolate, sushi, and lots of ethnic food, and loves to read and write books in whatever time she can grab between her sword-wielding husband and energetic daughter. She believes a simple life is the best life.
Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook
For this guest post, I asked Michelle what it was like writing Pieces! Here’s what she had to say:
Since Pieces is a companion/sequel novel, The Breakaway inspired the main story. I have to say, however, that Pieces never would have made it onto paper if it hadn’t been for all the fans of The Breakaway who messaged me about wanting a sequel. I didn’t have a sequel planned when The Breakaway came out. In fact, I had sworn at the time that I would never write a sequel. Ever. I’m not a huge fan of sequels, so it wasn’t on my radar at all. It’s not that I didn’t know what happened after The Breakaway. I had always had the idea in my head, and when people would ask me what happened to Naomi after being kidnapped, I’d tell them in a vague sort of way, “She goes to college and meets someone else until Jesse is let out of prison.” Then people would ask me if she ends up with Jesse and I’d usually smile and shrug and say, “What do you want to happen?” I knew what might happen, but I never thought other people truly wanted to know. That story never sounded as exciting as the kidnapping story, so why write it?
When messages kept popping up on FB, Twitter, and in my inbox, I stopped and thought, hmmm, maybe people do want to hear this story. Excited, I planned a short story and asked my publisher if they’d be interested in publishing it. They said they were interested, so I started planning out the story. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and to my surprise, the story grew into a novel and than a full-length novel. Go figure!
I have to say thank you to all the fans of The Breakaway because Pieces has been an amazing experience for me. Naomi’s story is finally complete!
Thank YOU Michelle!
February 14, 2013
Blog Tour: Farsighted by Emlyn Chand – Review + Giveaway!
Hey there everybody! Welcome to the tour for Farsighted and Open Heart by Emlyn Chand! This is going to be part of a special two part post on My Life is a Notebook! For more goodies, check out the tour schedule HERE. Today, we’re giving you our review for Farsighted! There’s also a GREAT giveaway for a KINDLE or a NOOK. That’s right! You heard me! Let’s get this party started!
Farsighted by Emlyn Chand
*This review was written by guest reviewer Em from Easy Reading and Damn Hard Writing!*
Maturity Level: Recommended for 13+. Some gore, violence, and kissing, but little to no sexual content.
I’ve been reading a lot of self-pubs on my Kindle app recently, and I have to say that so far, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the selections that I’ve made. Sure, there were a couple of duds, books that I could only stand about a chapter of— the stereotypical “bad” self-pubs, complete with bad formatting, an apparent lack of any sort of editor, and a definite lack of any real sales potential.
Then, there are books like Angelfall and Farsighted—books that you could totally see showing up on a bookstore shelf and actually being better than 75% of their genre. These are books that have been self-published because that is part of the author’s artistic vision (see this post by Chand) rather than being self-pubbed because there is absolutely NO CHANCE of a major press EVER accepting them. The latter is what self publishing has become (and also, what people tend to think when they sit down to read an indie); the former is what self-publishing was to begin with and what it should continue to be.
That said, on with the review!
Alex Kosmitoras is an abnormal guy in a depressingly normal situation: his parents are struggling financially, and there’s a bully who seems to have it out for him no matter what. On top of that, he’s blind—and, apparently, able to “see” the future. Simmi is the new girl from India, who is not only the friendliest, most accepting person Alex has ever met, but also has powers of her own. Alex is starting to think that this is actually going to be okay—that he has a shot of being friends with Simmi (and maybe more)—when he starts having visions of Simmi dying in various terrible ways and vows to stop it.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It paints a lovely tableau of multiculturalism against a small-town background; as someone who lives in a truly tiny town, I can appreciate this. Chand also manages to twine the paranormal element neatly into Alex’s everyday issues with school, parents, etc while drawing on mythological elements that made the 13-year-old-me-who-read-Edith-Wharton’s-Mythology-obsessively-for-about-a-year incredibly happy. There were points where the pacing seemed a little slow, but there were also times when I literally couldn’t put it down. It’s definitely a book that I’d recommend to people who are tired of the vampire/werewolves/angels that tend to overpopulate YA paranormals.
Pros
Alex’s POV. I have a weakness for blind protagonists, especially those that are still major badasses. Which Alex definitely is.
Simmi. I kind of fell a bit in love with her right alongside Alex, which made her a wonderful romantic lead for the book.
Shapri. I might have fallen in love with Simmi, but I would definitely be more like Shapri. I liked how Chand handled her reluctance to admit to her gifts, and I loved that she was not “the bad guy” in Simmi and Alex’s relationship just because she had a bit of a crush on Alex. Nice.
The runes and how they connect to the story. I’m actually incredibly interested in runes/tarot, so I loved reading the description of each rune and then figuring out how it connected to the chapter I was reading.
Caffeine-assisted visions! I love explorations of how drugs/chemicals would affect theoretical psychic powers.
The multicultural viewpoint.
Cons
Some of the transitions were a little choppy.
Occasionally, Alex fails to take action that moves the plot along and waits for other people to move it along instead. It seems just a little OOC, since he spends the majority of the book being a badass, but it wasn’t enough to disrupt the book entirely, so it’s all good.
Star Rating on Goodreads/Final Grade: 3.75 stars, rounded up for GR. A-. Would reread, will definitely read other books in series.
AND NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY! You could win a Kindle or a Nook HERE!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
February 11, 2013
Blog Tour: Talisman of El – Tens List + Giveaway!
Tour Schedule
Talisman of El by Alecia Stone
WHAT IF YOUR WHOLE LIFE WAS A LIE?
One Planet.
Two Worlds.
Population: Human … 7 billion.
Others … unknown.
When 14-year-old Charlie Blake wakes up sweating and gasping for air in the middle of the night, he knows it is happening again. This time he witnesses a brutal murder. He’s afraid to tell anyone. No one would believe him … because it was a dream. Just like the one he had four years ago – the day before his dad died.
Charlie doesn’t know why this is happening. He would give anything to have an ordinary life. The problem: he doesn’t belong in the world he knows as home.
He belongs with the others.
Book Trailer
Purchase
Amazon * Barnes & Noble
Author Alecia Stone
Alecia Stone is the author of Talisman Of El (Centrinian, 2012), the first book in the Talisman Of El trilogy. She graduated with a BA in Film & TV and has worked in television for a short period of time before branching out into storytelling. Alecia loves anything and everything paranormal. Her fascination with all things supernatural sparked her obsession with books, particularly young adult fantasy fiction, which she has never grown out of. She was inspired to become an author after reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen at the age of fourteen.
In 2008, Alecia started working on Talisman Of El, a contemporary young adult fantasy fiction inspired by people who disappeared mysteriously, including, but not limited to, Amelia Earhart and Percy Harrison Fawcett, who went on an expedition in search of an ancient lost city. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys going to the movies, listening to music, and travelling.
Talisman Of El is her first novel. At present, Alecia lives in England, United Kingdom with her family.
Website * Facebook * Goodreads * Twitter * Website
Blog Tour Giveaway
3 Print copies of Talisman of El
Open Internationally
Ends 2/18/13
TENS LIST!
Top 10 Books That Helped Inspire Talisman Of El – From the author
Okay, so I’ve been reading since … forever, so I’m sure there’s a huge list of books that have inspired Talisman Of El in one way or another, so how do I choose just ten books? Oh boy … Okay, so I’ll go through a list of books that I’ve either re-read or would read again because they are just that great. Here it goes.
10. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
9. The Bible (Go on, you know you want to ask by who)
8. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
7. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
6. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
5. Narnia by C.S. Lewis
4. The Green Mile by Stephen King
3. Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Caroll
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
1. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
February 1, 2013
Blog Tour: Farsighted by Emlyn Chand Book Highlight
Alex Kosmitoras’s life has never been easy. The only other student who will talk to him is the school bully, his parents are dead broke and insanely overprotective, and… oh yeah, he’s blind.
Just when he thinks he’ll never have a shot at a normal life, an enticing new girl comes to their small Midwest town all the way from India. Simmi is smart, nice, and actually wants to be friends with Alex. Plus she smells like an Almond Joy bar. Sophomore year might not be so bad after all.
Alex is in store for another new arrival—an unexpected and often embarrassing ability to “see” the future. Try as he may, Alex is unable to ignore his visions, especially when they suggest Simmi is in mortal danger.
With the help of the mysterious psychic next door and friends who come bearing gifts of their own, Alex embarks on his journey to change the future.
Amazon † BN
Simmi Shergill’s life is a mess. Her powers of psychic feeling are on the fritz, and Grandon Township’s sudden population boom has brought quite a few unsavory characters to town. She also looks like an over-blown balloon in her size 14 pants, but not even starving herself seems to be helping.
At least she has Alex, the boyfriend who loves her so much he’d do anything for her. Last summer, he even risked his life to protect her from the mysterious boy everyone was convinced wanted to kill her.
Just one problem: she’s not so sure she feels the same way. Is Alex really the man of her dreams? Why can’t she stop fixating on her would-be killer, Dax? Part of her wants to run screaming in the other direction whenever Dax is around, while the other part longs to run into his embrace, no matter whom she’d hurt or what she’d risk.
Simmi’s loyalty is on the line. Whom will she choose—the blind seer who loves her, or the charming telekinetic with “bad idea” written all over him? Emotions run high in the tension-packed book two of the Farsighted series.
Amazon † BN
Other books in the series…
About The Author…
From an early age, Emlyn Chand has counted books among her best friends. She loves to hear and tell stories and emerged from the womb with a fountain pen grasped firmly in her left hand (true story). Her affinity for the written word extends to absolutely every area of her life: she has published three novels and three children’s books with plans for many more of each, leads a classics book group with almost five-hundred members, and, of course, runs the whole shebang at Novel Publicity.
The book that changed Emlyn’s life is Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crocket Johnson. It opened her eyes to the world that could exist if only she was willing to create it—a lesson she has never forgotten. While she enjoys all types of novels, her greatest loves are literary fiction and YA. She’s best known for her Farsighted series and is developing a slow but steady following for the Bird Brain Books. She’s eager to see how her women’s fiction novel, Torn Together, will be received by the reading masses.
Website† Facebook † GoodReads † Twitter † Blog
Make sure to check out the FARSIGHTED & OPEN HEART blog tour kicking off Monday, February 4th!
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GRAND PRIZE: Kindle or Nook — Winners choice!
January 31, 2013
ARC Review: “Uses for Boys” by Erica Lorraine Scheidt
Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt
Anna remembers a time before boys, when she was little and everything made sense. When she and her mom were a family, just the two of them against the world. But now her mom is gone most of the time, chasing the next marriage, brining home the next stepfather. Anna is left on her own—until she discovers that she can make boys her family. From Desmond to Joey, Todd to Sam, Anna learns that if you give boys what they want, you can get what you need. But the price is high—the other kids make fun of her; the girls call her a slut. Anna’s new friend, Toy, seems to have found a way around the loneliness, but Toy has her own secrets that even Anna can’t know.
Then comes Sam. When Anna actually meets a boy who is more than just useful, whose family eats dinner together, laughs, and tells stories, the truth about love becomes clear. And she finally learns how it feels to have something to lose—and something to offer. Real, shocking, uplifting, and stunningly lyrical, Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt is a story of breaking down and growing up.
1 1/2 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for this eARC! This title is now available.
CONTENT WARNING: If you are the kind of person who doesn’t like graphic sex in your books … look elsewhere. This review will also be discussing this, so … fair warning. THERE WILL BE ALL OF THE SPOILERS because I can’t even handle what happened.
When I read this blurb, I had my assumptions about this book. I was expecting a broken girl meets a good guy and everything is happiness and puppies until something happens and then they break up and then they realize their love for each other and then get back together. You know, the basic plot of every romance story ever. What with the beautiful cover and the promise of “lyrical” prose, I thought that’s what HAD to be going on here.
IT’S NOT. IT’S REALLY NOT.
Okay, lyrical yes. And that’s the only reason for that half star, there. Scheidt does have a way with words I can’t deny. Fair warning, though, that’s going to be about the only good thing I say about this book. I try to keep it SO BALANCED in my reviews, usually, but this one … I just can’t do it.
Let’s talk about Anna, first. Anna is the most passive, depressed child I’ve ever met, who is so obsessed with sex I can’t even. I’ll mention this again, but you should know right now that most of this book takes place when Anna is 14 to 16 years old. BUT SHE’S SO OBSESSED WITH SEX. Also, also, back to the passive part. Anna doesn’t give the air of DOING much in this book at all. She basically just drifts through life, magically always finding another guy to sleep with her when she gets bored. And each one of them is more of a horrible person than the last, until Sam. But still. I couldn’t help but hate her from page one, because she doesn’t DO ANYTHING.
So, basically, the whole first part of the book is about how Anna’s mom does nothing but chase guys around her entire life. She gets married, they move, she gets divorced, etc. Anna is always lonely and hates her life. Then, one day, on the bus, this guy named Desmond starts playing with her breasts and she lets him, disconnectedly looking out the window the whole time, until she jumps off at her bus stop without even reacting to the whole thing. A couple of bus rides later, Desmond has brought his two friends in on the fun, and everyone in school is calling Anna a slut because she’s letting these boys do whatever they want under her shirt. SHE IS THIRTEEN AT THIS POINT.
Then Anna gets a boyfriend. His name is Joey, and without any preamble he starts spending every day after school at her house, having sex. Seriously. A recurring theme with the guys in this book is that they give their name and then there is sex. There is no in between. There are lots and lots of sex, some happy feelings, and then Joey announces he’s moving away. Anna has sex with him one last time, and then he’s gone. Bam. SHE IS FOURTEEN AT THIS POINT.
Then Anna’s mom finally remembers her daughter exists and takes her on vacation with her and her current boyfriend. At this point I was like, FINALLY SOME GOOD THINGS. But that’s a lie. There are no good things. During a party at the house of Anna’s new friend, this guy named Todd starts messing with her breasts without asking. Anna’s friend tells him to go away, but this just makes Anna moody. That night, Todd creeps in to her room in the middle of the night and rapes her. Yes, rapes her. Covers her mouth with his hand and everything. After it’s over, the only other mentions of Todd are Anna missing him. Then the fact that she was raped just disappears. THERE IS NO AMOUNT OF CAPS THAT CAN EXPLAIN HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS. Fine, maybe the fact that she wants to believe he really liked her is a PTSD thing. But IF YOU INCLUDE RAPE, IT CANNOT BE A PLOT CONVENTION. It cannot be a thing that just happens and then life goes on like la-dee-da. Just–I can’t explain how angry this made me.
Some times passes, and then Anna meets Josh. They have sex, and a few pages later they’re moving in together. I think Anna’s 16 or 17 by this point. She drops out of school and starts working at a coffee shop. Then she realizes she’s pregnant and goes to have an abortion. Yep, yep, exactly what I just said. There is pregnancy and there is an abortion. That happened. By this point, I just can’t even any more.
Josh and Anna break up really soon after the abortion, and Anna moves in on her own. AT SEVENTEEN. She has a couple of one nights stands with random dudes and then she meets Sam. Sam is the most normal guy in this book. He’s 17 and sweet to Anna. For at least a couple of pages it’s not about sex. Then it’s about sex again, maybe just with a little more love. The thing is that the Sam thing is only a tiny bit of the book, not the bulk of it like I expected, and even during it Anna feels listless and passive. By this point, I don’t think she can be repaired quite that easily.
I respect what the author was trying to do. I do–none of this is easy stuff to write about. But I still can’t deny that I just felt sick to my stomach for this entire book. The rape, the abortion, the sex and everything in between–I literally could barely handle it. I only finished it because I wanted to write my review with the whole picture, because I KNEW I had to say SO MANY THINGS about this book. Even now, I cannot believe what I read. Yes, I understand it’s realistic. Yes, I understand the author was trying to present something other than the bright side of life. I respect the attempt, but I cannot in good faith give this book anything more than 1 1/2 stars and I certainly won’t recommend it to anyone. I read books as an escape from this negativity, and when I put this book down I was depressed for two days. I haven’t been this angry since Beautiful Disaster and Shattered Souls. Maybe this works for some people, but just certainly not for me.
