Megan Hand's Blog, page 3

Review - Defy the Stars

Goodreads Summary  

Julia Cape: A dedicated
classical piano student just trying to get through her last semester of
high school while waiting to hear from music conservatories.

Reed MacAllister: A slacker more likely to be found by the stoners’ tree than in class.

Julia
and Reed might have graduated high school without ever speaking to each
other…until, during a class discussion of Romeo and Juliet, Julia
scoffs at the play’s theme of love at first sight, and Reed responds by
arguing that feelings don’t always have to make sense. Julia tries to
shake off Reed’s comment and forget about this boy who hangs with the
stoner crowd—and who happens to have breathtaking blue eyes—but fate
seems to bring the two together again and again. After they share an
impulsive, passionate kiss, neither one can deny the chemistry between
them. Yet as Julia gets closer to Reed, she also finds herself drawn
into his dark world of drugs and violence. Then a horrific tragedy
forces Julia’s and Reed’s families even farther apart…and Julia must
decide whether she’s willing to give up everything for love.










Find on Amazon






When I found out about this book, and that it was in verse,
I was eager to start. Gimme gimme gimme. I
have a soft spot for books in verse. I absolutely love how an
author can pack a page with emotion in so few words. I didn’t feel Defy the
Stars had that true verse-y flow, though it was still packed with emotion,
just in a fuller way.






I loved Julia. She was driven, focused, and, let’s face it,
MUSICAL. As a fellow pianist, I adored reading the scenes where Julia was playing the
piano. She plays a Chopin Ballade that I PLAYED! It made me feel special, and I
identified with her. The descriptions of her playing are so well done, and as a
musician, I am extra picky with musical descriptions. I wanted to feel her playing, and StephanieParent definitely captured that.




Reed broke my heart a little. I hated his situation, his
tragic past. I wanted so much more for him, and I thought Julia would be the
answer. But instead of her pulling him out of his abyss, he dragged her into
his. Unintentionally. Sort of. This isn’t your typical Bad Boy seducing Good
Girl story. It’s much deeper than that. Julia is dealing with some self-made
stresses that she is unable to suppress or cope with naturally, so when Reed
presents an opportunity, she takes it.




This is where the drug use comes in. I admit, I was
really shocked at first. Angry. Guarded. I wanted to scream at Julia for risking everything for a momentary high. But I
understood it. I felt the pressure she was under, and her first experience was
so impactful, she was left craving more.




Oh, Julia… Sad face. Sad heart.




This story is sort of a modern retelling of Romeo and
Juliet, and the underlying theme is brought about in their English class.
Stephanie did a beautiful job of embedding the theme without overwhelming the
story with “retelling”. This story was different, new, fresh, and vivid.




I am not ashamed to admit that my favorite scenes were during Julia
and Reed’s drug induced hazes. The language is so vivid.




"This golden rush of energy blasts through my mind, invades my veins till it fills every inch of me. I've never felt this awake - the world has never been so clear, like I could reach out and hold it in my hand... I can actually feel the tension crackling between us until we collide and now I know what it feels like to be this close to someone, lips hands tongue teeth, breath mind soul, I will never ever go back to the way things were before."







Overall, this was a heart-wrenching, beautiful tale of love
gone wrong, of the pressures of life, and of the things we will sometimes do to
overcome – or bury – those pressures.




Keep an eye out for Stephanie Parent . She has a new novel
coming out - Precious Things, coming out this Spring!

Tight Knit by Allie Brennan

Tight Knit is the debut novel of my Rockin' Awesome cover artist, Allie Brennan. I haven't read it yet, but I've heard some pretty amazing things. In another week or so, I'm going to curl up with it. Doesn't it look like the perfect winter read?!


  

CHECK OUT THIS COVER!








I mean, she's a cover artist, so Pshaw! But it's so stinkin' pretty,  I seriously wanna touch my screen when I see it.



I am gifting a Kindle E-copy of Tight Knit to two lucky commentors. Please include your email in the comment, and I will pick two at random at the end of next week!


 Add to Goodreads HERE


Goodreads Summary

Talia Gregory relies on
her Nan for everything, especially helping her calm the anxiety that
controls her life. But Nan gets sick, and it couldn’t be worse timing.
Talia’s panic attacks are getting worse, her boyfriend is a jerk, her
best friend is distant, her parents are more absent than usual and she’s
stuck planning the Cozy Christmas Charity Drive for her knitting group
in place of Nan. If that’s not panic inducing enough, enter Lachlan.

Lachlan
McCreedy doesn’t rely on anyone. Not after what he’s been through. It’s
him and Gram, nothing else matters but keeping his past buried, and his
secrets hidden. So when Gram forces him to help with her Christmas
sale, Talia is the last thing he expected, and trusting her with his
secrets comes as a shock to both of them. But when he unexpectedly falls
for her, the question becomes can he trust her with his heart?



To buy:  

Amazon

Kobo

Paperback

I'm Goin' Indie!

This will not come as a surprise to most of you. For those
of you who don’t know, I am currently working on my fourth novel. My third has
been finished for way too long. I
admit, though, I have not done much querying. My original plan was to query in
January. Through a long, thought-out process (talking to 3 friends), I have
come the elegant conclusion (I pretty much screamed like a little girl) that in
May, I will be joining the ranks of all the amazing and talented Indie authors
I have had the privilege to cross paths with and/or befriend.




It’s been such an amazing journey, buying my first Nook (now
Kindle), experiencing indie books for the first time, and falling in love! Then this birthing into the social networking world.
Truth is, I’m sure I could spend the next few years querying and querying and
querying. Maybe I wouldn’t end up with a Kathryn Stockett (The Help) story, but I’m sure I
could get published if I worked hard enough. I just don’t want to. I have no
drive to spend years doing this when all these other beautiful people are
having such great success and – Shocker
– HAVING FUN!




Not that traditional publishing would not be fun. What it
really comes down to is I feel like the Indie world is where I fit. I’m looking forward to a year of
finding a decent-sized space to squeeze my giant writer butt into. And I must
admit, the idea of being the cute little arm candy was not appealing. I want my
own whip and my own fedora! WhooTsh!




I hope you all will welcome me and enjoy my stories when you
get to read them.




*runs and hides*




Just kidding. That is all any writer ever really dreams of: people loving their stories and
routing for their characters.




And I’M ECSTATIC to share them with you!




My first novel is BITTER ANGEL (Goodreads link). I don’t have an exact date
set yet, but it will be out sometime in May. There’s no cover yet (winks AllieB), but there is a summary. Please check it out!!




HAPPY NEW YEAR, BEAUTIFUL
PEOPLE! It’s going to be a great one ;)

Share with me some happy

After all the sadness of Friday (my prayers are constantly with these families!), and the death of my friend, I really need some happy. So I'm sharing with all of you my favorite Christmas story. *Smiley Face*











 I think I was four, my brother was about two and a half,
and we were fostering a little girl at the time, Christina, who was eight. My
mom said to me and Christina the evening before that we could open our presents
as soon as we woke up. 



 That's probably not how she said it, but that's
how I heard it. (A lesson in making sure your childen understand they don't mean
it literally.) 



So what do you think happened when we woke up? I flew out
of bed, straight for the present-piled tree downstairs. Christina, being the
older wise one, tried to talk me out of it. 



I said, "No! She said as
soon as we woke up!" 



See? That's how I heard it. 



I couldn't read at
the time. I just remember grabbing gifts, wildly tearing away the paper not
knowing who the present was meant for, saying "COOL!" everytime, and setting the gift aside,
eager for another. Imagine the anger tornado that ensued when my parents woke
up. To say it was not pretty was an understatement. I think I saw actual steam
come out of my mother's ears. 



She tossed all the presents in a box and told us
we were not having a Christmas, she was so heartbroken. Later, though, being
the loving mother that she truly is (Hi, Mom:) she sat us down and
redistributed every gift to its intended owner. I do remember being a little
disappointed when some of the gifts I'd thought I was going to keep were
not meant for me. But at least we still had our Christmas, and all was well in the
end. 



Do you have any great Christmas
stories?  

Share with me your happy.

A Too-Soon Goodbye and a FREE gift that could save your life

Trevor on the left, with his buddies

I’ve been quiet in the online social world this week. We
lost a friend this week. His name was Trevor, he was two weeks older than me, a
fabulous musician, warm-hearted, laid back, hilarious, and an all-around good guy. I don’t handle death well. Not
that anyone does, but I guess you could say, I don’t handle it normally. I’m a
firm believer in heaven, hell, and a loving God, but it’s still difficult for
me to fathom a person being here one minute and the next, gone. It’s an issue my brain battles from time to time, so when I
think about Trevor’s death, it’s hard to make my brain grasp that he’s just gone.




I don’t handle funerals well, either. I’ve been fortunate in
that I can count the funerals I’ve been to on one hand, and this is the first
time I’ve experienced a friend, someone our age, dying. And, again, not that
anyone handles a funeral, but I get
clammy, nervous. I’m uncomfortable. I can’t come within so many feet of an open
casket. It doesn’t seem right saying goodbye to an unbreathing body with
no soul. And you can feel it. When you’re there, bent over them, looking at the
too-thick makeup, and their strangely molded hands folded over their middle,
it’s just… not right. I don’t like it. I don’t know if anyone else shares this
view, but I can’t help how I feel.




At Trevor’s service, his father stood and made a speech about
how he was an early walker, bright, a good older brother, kind to everyone he
met, and how that night he asked his dad if he could borrow something. His
dad said “sure, come on over”. Trevor said, “Thanks, Pops. I’ll be there in
twenty.” And never showed.




Our hearts are hurting, but what hurts the most is how
preventable his death was.




Sunday night, Trevor lost control of his car in the rain and
catapulted into a pond. He panicked, didn’t think to open a window right away
before his car filled with water, and by the time he was fully submerged, he
couldn’t open the door or break the glass. It took rescue workers an hour to
get him out.






Hundreds of people a year die this way, and my husband and I
want to do everything we can to make sure this never happens again. Below is a video, showing exactly how to get
out of a car, should you find yourself submerged in water. ALSO, we are
ordering glass break/seat belt cutting tools from Amazon and are giving these
out FREE! If you do a search on Amazon,
you’ll see several different brands. Here is the one we’re giving out. If you
want one PLEASE CONTACT ME. We will buy and ship FREE.
This is at NO COST to you. NO questions
asked. (I'm fully aware that I sound like an infomercial right now.) We just want to make sure such a preventable death never happens again,
as much as we can within our ability.




If you want to buy your own, PLEASE DO. If you want us to
send you one, go to my CONTACT ME page, or email me your info directly at meganhandwrites@gmail.com. All I
need is your name and address, and we’ll ship it out as soon as we get them in.
You are NOT putting us out by asking for one. We want to help. Let us do that.




Thank you for reading. Prayers for his family are much appreciated, and please please watch the video below!














Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Review: Skylark AND my Babyfaces Contribution

Goodreads Summary 

Sixteen-year-old Lark Ainsley has never seen the sky.

Her
world ends at the edge of the vast domed barrier of energy enclosing
all that’s left of humanity. For two hundred years the city has
sustained this barrier by harvesting its children's innate magical
energy when they reach adolescence. When it’s Lark’s turn to be
harvested, she finds herself trapped in a nightmarish web of experiments
and learns she is something out of legend itself: a Renewable, able to
regenerate her own power after it’s been stripped.

Forced to flee
the only home she knows to avoid life as a human battery, Lark must
fight her way through the terrible wilderness beyond the edge of the
world. With the city’s clockwork creations close on her heels and a
strange wild boy stalking her in the countryside, she must move quickly
if she is to have any hope of survival. She’s heard the stories that
somewhere to the west are others like her, hidden in secret—but can she
stay alive long enough to find them?



 ____________________






 Meagan Spooner’s Skylark was recommended to me by my very
best reading friend, my sister, Anna. Aww, cheers, lovely sis. Anyhoo. I must
say my sister and I have similar tastes that tend to bob and weave. Lately,
I’ve leaned more toward the contemporary side of YA and NA, while she’s stayed
strictly with the paranormal and dystopian YA. It makes me a little
sad, because we’re reading primarily different books now, and haven’t been able
to discuss a book together in quite some time.









*sad face*




So when she recommended Skylark to me, I was like Eh, okay. But, somewhere not so deep in
my subconscious, I knew I was going to struggle with this book. And, let me
tell you, it was not because of the
writing – which was FANTABULOUS. No. It was the story.




Lark is a 16yo girl living in a city controlled by magic. At
a certain age all the children are harvested for their magic – sacrificed to
the city – and given an occupation. The end. But Lark is different. She’s a
Renewable, an endless magical resource, and a promise of safety for her city’s
future. However, becoming this energy source for her city will require an
unimaginable sacrifice – she will become the city’s slave and live in constant
pain.




When the story began, the first thing I noticed was the
writing. Amazing. Truly. The author has a
fluid way with words, creating a vibrant and grim picture of the current
world. The world building was great. Once I was into the story, I didn’t feel
lost or confused, including when Lark escapes the city. So it wasn’t that it
was lackluster or boring, it just wasn’t what I was in the mood to read at the
time. I passed this book over for others, and ended up finishing it over a span
of several weeks – which I never do. Never.




When I finally did buckle in and decide I was going to
finish it,  I was immediately drawn into
the second half, reading wide-eyed and ignoring my child for periods of time
because Holy Surprises, Batman!




My take on Lark – I liked her, didn’t love her. She did not
come off as sixteen. She felt much younger and too innocent. I guess I can
understand with how sheltered of a live she’s lived in her city, but I still
thought she was a touch too innocent. The other characters were pretty
wonderful. It’s hard to say much about them because they were all very
background. The story mostly revolves around Lark and her experience. And there
are betrayals I don’t want to give away by discussing the character’s, er,
character.




In a nutshell, the story was wonderful. Anyone who likes
magic will LOVE this book. Now that’s it’s over I can honestly say I did love
it. I just wish I’d have loved it over a few days rather than weeks.




Favorite Quotes:




There was a rawness to his voice that cut me more than any anger would have. "I know," I said, keeping my gaze ahead of me, on the fractured surface of the water. "I'm sorry."

 

He had been so like an animal that first time I'd seen him. Then, I would have believed him to be a monster. The way he'd gazed at me, as the ghosts faded into mist around us, with such shock and such hunger, had shaken me to my core. The blood-stained face, the bestial grace. Why hadn't I remembered it later? Because he saved my life. Again and again. And because I learned, or thought I had learned, to see through the dispassionate exterior. Had I truly learned, or had he been growing more and more human, the longer he stayed in the aura of the my magic?







AND... Ready for it?




ME!









Trisha at WORDS + STUFF is hosting Baby Faces Blogfest:



Between December 2nd and 3rd, post a pic of yourself as a baby, and/or;
Tell us a story
about when you were a baby (no doubt you can't quite remember it
yourself, but you've probably heard some stories from other members of
your family).

You can choose to do one or the other or both, depending on your mood on the day(s). ;)



 Here's my story. I actually had to call my mom this morning because I couldn't remember any baby stories of facts about myself. I do, however, remember using this picture for a 2nd grade contest. It was a last-to-be-picked kind of thing. And I won. Because everyone thought I was a boy, haha! 



My mom said I was a very independent baby, toddle, and child. That does not surprise me as I am a bit too independent as an adult. She said when I was 18months, she went away for a weekend retreat. When she returned, I turned my nose up at her, ignored her, and would not look at her for TWO DAYS! Wow, that's some determination.



I'll be posting my favorite Christmas in the next week or so. Think about your favorite Christmas story. I wanna hear!

Once a loser

Me and my current manuscript






Always a loser, right?




When I was a kid, I was never a loser. I was always beautiful. Always successful. Always great.
Always a winner. Because my momma
said so. Those other kids be damned.




Now that I’m an adult, I have to bandage my own
boo-boos, make my own insurance calls, clean up my own messes… Okay, who am I
kidding? I always did that. Either way, I have no one now but my little ole
self to stare down in the mirror. Chin up, shoulders back, head high, you’re a
winner. A winner, I tell ya!




Not according to NaNo…




And I wasn’t just any kind of loser this year. I was a
giant, roley-poley one. But I was no couch potato, I assure you. With a nearly
full-time piano teaching job, teaching my pre-K music class, and taking care of
a toddler, my life is pretty full. Then add on the reading, piano practicing,
and writing requirements, and my life is an old stuffed suitcase popping apart
at the seams. It’s overwhelming. Not that anyone else’s life isn’t. I know we
(speaking mostly to you women ;) are constantly overwhelmed with the duties of
life, whether you work and raise kids, or just do the kiddo-raising, it’s hard. Like really freaking hard! To have to add to that is just insanity,
right?





Me and my current life


I don’t care. I see all you beautiful author people, having
your babies, maybe working regular jobs, and making it happen. I know I’ll get
there, too. I’ve just come to realize that this year isn’t my WINNER year. For
NaNo, that is. Maybe next year, when my kiddo is in pre-school, I’ll have some
longer chunks of time. The important things to me right now are: raising my
son, making sure he’s happy, making sure our relationship is strong, teaching
my kids and doing a darn good job of it. Anything extra
has to be relegated to the bottom of the pile. For now. I am content with
knowing that this won’t always be my life. My son will grow up, he’ll go to
school, maybe (hopefully) I’ll be able to teach a little less, free up some
more time. I know my shining moment will come, and someday I plan on earning
that NaNo WINNER badge. But not this year, and I’m absolutely fine with that.




But now that I am a loser, I do have one beef with NaNo. I
admit, before this year, I never actively participated in NaNo. I only heard
about it a couple years ago, and had just finished a novel that March, and was
not in the position to start a new one in November with my son being a baby at
the time. But now that I’ve participated, I’m wondering – who the hell thought to have it in November?! Seriously!




During the mid-point of holiday/cold and flu season?
Really?!




I know this wasn’t an issue for so many of you, because I’ve
seen around the blogosphere there are a LOT of WINNERS out there, and GO YOU!!
But, seriously, NaNo people, you could’ve picked a way better month. Like
January. Everyone hates January. The post-holiday blues. That cranky winter
thing that keeps us inside. Many great reasons to have it in January. Or
February. Or March. But during the middle
of the holiday season? Okay. I’m done.




To all of you NaNo WINNERS, CONGRATS! I am so proud of you.
Right now, I’m just damn proud of myself that I’m writing consistently and not
falling apart, lol.




That’s my life.

Accidentally On Purpose

  Goodreads Summary

Emmy thinks her boss Kyle Sterling of Sterling Corporations is a jerk.

So, she sleeps with him.

Emmy
tries to put the mistake behind her, but then finds herself snowed in
with Kyle. As the snow builds, so does the heat in the house between the
two. The problem is that Kyle has a steady girlfriend that he is
unwilling to break up with. Emmy cuts Kyle off and starts dating Luke.
Even as their relationship takes off, Emmy is finding Kyle hard to
shake. He is blatant in his feelings and desires for Emmy, putting her
in an awkward situation. She tries hard to resist Kyle, but deep down
inside Emmy's motives are shady. When Emmy succumbs to her hidden
feelings for Kyle without setting Luke free, devastating consequences
ensue.

In addition to her two men, Emmy daydreams about doing violent things to her loud mouthed, opinionated mother.

With
some humor and sarcasm, and of course, some tequila, Emmy's world will
flip upside down as she deals with the results of "accidentally on
purpose" falling for two men at once.



 _____________________





Oh. Wow. First, I must say, I have read books about cheating
before, and they usually leave me with a bad taste in my mouth, yet I can’t
seem to stay away from them. I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess. But when I
read Bookaholic’s review of this book, I was very intrigued and big-ole-glutton
me had to check it out. I had a
feeling I’d be in for a rollercoaster, but I also thought it would be a quick
and fun, light romance about a girl and guy that just couldn’t stay away from
each other, despite not wanting to let go of their current relationships.




I was right and wrong.




Rollercoaster, it was. Fun, light, handsy, hot romance it
was not. Well, except for the handsy, hot part. This story was far more serious
that I expected, and to give an apt description as to how I felt, I’ll say
this:  Accidentally On Purpose took a
hammer to my glass heart and had me on my knees happily taking my time, picking
up the shattered pieces. I have read a lot of books, but none that so precisely
describe the addictive duality of pleasure and pain. I took it all in the gut,
the pleasure and the pain, and gleefully asked for more.




Emmy was a spunky, sure woman. I loved her from the start.
Especially her no-holds-barred mouth with her boss. Her antagonistic
relationship with her mother was… familiar. I would bust out laughing during
their phone conversations. Kyle was really fun and sexy. To start. My opinion
of him ping-ponged throughout the novel, and rightfully so.




Luke. I fell in love with
Luke the moment I met him. And I actually felt like I met him. And I wish I could meet him again… Down, girl. Okay. I’m back.




The story definitely had its moments where I was going bu-bu-but I want this and this and this to
happen. But as a whole, it was so wonderfully spun, I can’t imagine it
going any other way. And usually these types of stories have me screaming in
frustration, pulling my hair out when the characters act like complete idiots
because they are completely blind to the disastrous consequences barreling
their way.




Accidentally On Purpose was also mature beyond my
expectations and spans quite a bit of time, which I really liked. It dealt with a few heavy issues that I can't get into, because I don't want to give anything away. But I felt these situations and the aftermath were very realistic and handled with grace. The amount of time the novel spans, gave us a
true sense for the characters, and we got to see the growth of the characters
over time, not just their immediate actions and reactions. I don’t usually do
this – compare story with story – but this story, with its longer lapse of time
and maturity and emotional growth of the characters, reminded me of On the
Island. I absolutely adored that book, and already feel like I adore this one
just as much.




Thank you, L.D. Davis for such a beautiful, truthful, and
pleasantly painful story. I have a feeling I will find myself reading this one
again. Soon.

How I fell in love with a villain

I read Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me at the end of last year in
almost one sitting. I was thirty pages from the end when we had to go to a New
Year’s Eve party. We went, I socialized for an appropriate amount of time, then
I snuck (I like this word way better than sneaked) away, and it hit my
one-hundred and oneth book for the year just before the ball dropped.




Shatter Me was unlike anything I had ever read – a girl that
can kill with just a touch. But it wasn’t necessarily the premise that was so
different and captivating. It was Mafi’s writing style. Wow. She certainly knew
how to keep a person chained to the couch!




I expected equal awesomeness from her follow-up, Destroy Me .
What I didn’t expect was for it to be in Warner, the villain’s, voice. So,
because of the unique circumstances, I checked in with My Heart to make sure we
were still on the same page.




Me: *knocks on door*




Heart: *opens door, glances around wildly* Yeah?




Me: I just wanted to, uh, make sure we’re good.




Heart: Yeah. We’re good.   She says it in a rush *door starts
to close*




Me: *puts hand in doorway; pinched brow tries to convey
gravity of situation* He’s a villain.
Understand? We hate him. Okay?




Heart: *nods like a druggie trying to convince a cop she’s
clean* Course. Sure. Uh-huh.




Me: *suspiciously tries to peer inside*




Heart: *narrows opening; only her head is visible* Well,
thanks for stopping by. I really gotta go. You know all the pumping and feeling
things, don’t wanna get behind. *slams door in my face*




Me: *shrugs, turns, nods to herself* She gets it. *walks
away, oblivious*




Heart: *leans against closed door inside; wipes sweat from
brow* I think she’s on to me.






Goodreads Summary

 In Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me,
Juliette escaped from The Reestablishment by seducing Warner—and then
putting a bullet in his shoulder. But as she’ll learn in Destroy Me, Warner is not that easy to get rid of. . .

Back
at the base and recovering from his near-fatal wound, Warner must do
everything in his power to keep his soldiers in check and suppress any
mention of a rebellion in the sector. Still as obsessed with Juliette as
ever, his first priority is to find her, bring her back, and dispose of
Adam and Kenji, the two traitors who helped her escape. But when
Warner’s father, The Supreme Commander of The Reestablishment, arrives
to correct his son’s mistakes, it’s clear that he has much different
plans for Juliette. Plans Warner simply cannot allow.

Set after Shatter Me and before its forthcoming sequel, Unravel Me, Destroy Me is a novella told from the perspective of Warner, the ruthless leader of Sector 45.




_______________






Destory Me was unlike anything I have ever read. A middle
novel in the voice of the villain. The
wha? The villain. We’re taught to hate him throughout the first novel. He’s
evil. He wants bad things for Julliette, and he wants to do bad things to her.
So we thought. Then Mafi takes our preconceived notions by the nostrils and
shoves them facedown.




And I gotta say – GENIUS!




Warner is still everything he was, but now we get a look
inside his head, and holy crap there’s
a LOT we don’t know. What an amazingly rare experience,
to be front-row-center to a villain’s inner sanctum. We get glimpses into his
past, stomach-churning moments with his monster villain of a father. We see why Warner is the way he is, what made
him, what keeps him, his actual plans for Julliette, his true reasons for
barging into her life, and his undeniable – and strangely beautiful – feelings
for her. We get it all. And Mafi’s writing is just as mesmerizing as I
remember, even in another voice.




Maybe some of you have read books like this. I’ll honestly
say that I can’t remember. My memory is worse than a flea’s. Take a flea’s
brain, cut it into eight equal pie pieces, flick all but one of those pieces
away, and you have my memory. If there are other books like this, TELL ME. This
is such a cool concept. Now my expectations for the next books are all tangled
up. I have no idea who I’m going to favor more, but Destroy Me has definitely
leveled the playing field. It’s anyone’s game now.




Destroy Me is a novella, and is out as a digital copy for
$2.99. Worth the buy! It’s labeled as book 1.5 and will leave you salivating
for the next installment. Thankfully, Unravel Me is due out February 5th,
YAY!




Favorite Lines:




“I, like the rest of the
puppets in this world, am entirely subservient to my father’s will. It’s a
truth I’m forced to contend with every day: that I’ve never been able to stand
up to the man who has his fist clenched around my spine.”




“Empathy is not an emotion
I’ve ever known, but now it’s drowning me, pulling me into a world I never knew
I could enter. And though I’ve always believed she and I shared many things in
common, I did not know how deeply I could feel it. It’s killing me.”







HAPPY PRE-TURKEY DAY, EVERYONE! 

Have a safe and wonderful and food-filled holiday tomorrow :)

Rouge by Leigh Talbert Moore

When Leigh first told me about her book, I was… not
disappointed, but I certainly didn’t expect it – a Cabaret Theater novel set in
the 1890s. I thought, Okay. I’ll read it. Someday soon. Then I kept seeing
updates for it. The cover. The synopsis. Her excitement for the release. At the
time, I was only about 15,000 words behind my NaNo goal – having a two year old
will do that – and I had already blasted to bits my personal promise of no TV
and books. This book was really starting to intrigue me, and I was feeling
particularly antsy that night, so I purchased it and started it right away. And
spent the next two days swept away (still ticking away at that NaNo goal, so I
couldn’t completely immerse myself). 




If I didn’t expect the summary, the novel pushed my
expectations over the edge. It pierced my heart with a fishhook and tugged and
tugged and tugged until my ribs cracked under the pressure. So here I am, with
my displaced heart, and a knot in my stomach, swelling by the page, and then –
She did what? He did what? They did WHAT?







Goodreads Summary

Trapped in the
underground theater world of 1890s New Orleans, Hale Ferrer has only one
goal: escape. But not without Teeny, the orphan-girl she rescued from
the streets and promised to protect.

Freddie Lovel, Hale's
wealthy Parisian suitor, seems to be the easy solution. If only his
touch could arouse her interest like Beau's, the penniless stagehand who
captures her heart.

Denying her fears, Hale is poised to choose
love until an evil lurking in their cabaret-home launches a chain of
events that could cost her everything.




                                         







I loved Hale. She was loving and generous and only slightly
hardened by her upbringing. Other souls would’ve been more so, but she was a
soft-tough cookie. And her motherly love for Teeny, while she was only
seventeen herself, was so real. I felt it.
Her emotions were so strong and THERE that
I experienced them with her.




Beau… What can I say about Beau? He was beautiful, soft,
manly, wonderful. Heroic, protective, and strangely impulsive yet patient. Some
of his actions shocked me, but they humanized him, and he redeems himself.




Leigh really had a way with her secondary characters, as
well. I wanted to be courted by Freddie, mother Teeny, and accept the shadow of
Roland’s protective wing. Teeny – I wanted more of her. She was the typical
semi-selfish twelve year old, but bright and good to the core. She broke my
heart. Roland was a great friend to Hale, and – as a fellow pianist who’s never
smoked a cigarette – I loved his ultra-confidence, and could picture perfectly
him going at the piano with those big man hands, a burned down cigarette
glowing from the corner of his mouth. Even Evie cracked my heart a little.




And the evil that lurked beneath the surface threw me. Leigh
makes some bold choices in her story, but I can kind of see Hale pulling the
strings and telling her, It has to be
this way. I can relate to that – the character making a choice you wouldn’t
even consider.




Overall, this was a wonderful novel. Set in the 1890s with
the pace of a contemporary story, meaning there weren’t gobs of paragraphs of
historical background/setting descriptions. I felt this fast paced life in my
bones as I read it, could smell the cigarette smoke and all of Freddie's beautiful red roses. I could feel the
rosin crackling beneath my feet. Leigh painted a world with just enough words
to bring the scenes to life, perfectly showing how this time in New
Orleans was vivid, wild, changing, and unpredictable,
while hurrying us along with the characters. Be warned, this is the first of a
series, and will leave you wanting oh so much more.




I am looking forward to the oh so much more…