Stacking the Shelves (16)

Stacking the Shelves is a meme to feature all the books that have made their way into our homes this week or month! 

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

I started doing this meme monthly instead of weekly, so I have quite the book haul, but keep in mind it's from the last month! I am trying to read more of my TBR pile that's already on my bookshelf or Kindle, so I am not buying/requesting as many books as I used to and figured a monthly haul would be more exciting that a couple books every week.  :)

FOR REVIEW:

(Click on cover to go to Goodreads)

       

(Click on title to go to Amazon)

House Rules (Chicagoland Vampires #7) by Chloe Neill

Between by Kerry Schafer

Crave the Darkness (Shaede Assassin #3) by Amanda Bonilla
The Madness Underneath (Shades of London #2) by Maureen Johnson
Mind Games (Mind Games #1) by Kiersten White
The Lost (Celestial Blues #2) by Vicki Pettersson
Ink (The Paper Gods #1) by Amanda Sun

Midnight Blue-Light Special (Incryptid #2) by Seanan McGuire

BOUGHT:

(Click on cover to go to Goodreads)

 

(Click on title to go to Amazon)

Web of Lies (Elemental Assassin #2) by Jennifer Estep ($2.99 right now!)
Venom (Elemental Assassin #3) by Jennifer Estep ($2.99 right now!)

RECEIVED FOR CHRISTMAS!

My boyfriend, who never buys me books, got me this one for Christmas and I'm super excited! The omnibuses are such a crazy good deal! And I'll be hosting a read-a-long of the SOUL SCREAMERS series starting Feb. 15, along with Laura from Little Read Riding Hood, so now I'm all set!

Soul Screamers Vol. Two (My Soul to Keep\My Soul to Steal\Reaper)  by Rachel Vincent

What goodies did you add to your shelf this week?

Have you read any of my goodies? Which should I read first!?

Early Review: Level 2 by Lenore Appehans

Level 2
(The Memory Chronicles #1)
Lenore Appelhans
Release: January 15, 2013
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Three levels. Two loves. One choice. Debut novelist, Lenore Appelhans has written a thrilling otherworldly young adult novel about a place that exists between our world (Level 1) and what comes after life (Level 2).

Felicia Ward is dead. Trapped in a stark white afterlife limbo, she spends endless days replaying memories, of her family, friends, boyfriend ... and of the guy who broke her heart. The guy who has just broken into Level 2 to find her.

Felicia learns that a rebellion is brewing, and it seems she is the key. Suspended between heaven and earth, she must make a choice. Between two worlds, two lives and two loves. 

Review:

Level 2 promises to be a thrilling and unique debut, an exciting ride in an unusual world. Unfortunately, I found myself less thrilled and more disappointed while reading. I did not enjoy this book at all. In fact, after roughly sixty pages, I skimmed through the rest of the book because I just couldn't sit through it anymore.

Level 2 does fulfill it's promise to be unusual, only I didn't find this such a positive thing. When the story starts, our main character Felicia is in a bizarre facility with white walls, white ceiling, and a white floor. Oh yeah, and she's bald. Everyone there is bald (don't get me started...). She has apparently been there for years (and years and years) and for some reason Felicia and her two friends are the only ones among the other girls that live there who are interested in friendship or socializing. Felicia spends most of her existence sitting in a futuristic, sci-fi style chair (which for some reason reminded me of Total Recall) that can show her memories from her own life. There is also a credit system set up in this whacky facility that the girls can use to buy and watch each other's memories.

This whole idea of these girls trapped in this mysterious place after death could have been really interesting but instead it just reads as weird.

The introduction of a mysterious and good-looking guy named Julian excited me for a short time, and I thought maybe he could turn this ship around. Felicia spends a little time watching her memories of him and we get a little of their back story from when they were both alive. He's a slightly shady character and we're not sure if he's a bad boy we're supposed to love or just a bad boy.

But even Julian couldn't keep my interest. Even after he breaks Felicia out of said bizarre facility and they go on their long adventure that leads to Felicia learning she is some kind of important piece to a rebellion against...um something, I was still bored and confused. Some of the important aspects of the plot include heaven vs. purgatory and some rebellious angels, but by the time we get around to these things I just didn't care.

With generic, puddle-deep characters and a plot based on convenience I just couldn't get into Level 2. Although others have read and enjoyed this, I would, sadly, not recommend it.

Recommended for fans of: not recommended

This review is based on an advance copy of the book.

  

  2 / 5 stars

Revolution 19 Blog Tour: Giveaway and Interview with Gregg Rosenblum

Welcome!

This is my stop on the blog tour for REVOLUTION 19, hosted (and published) by Harper Teen!

First, let’s take a peek at the book, shall we?

Revolution 19 
Book 1
Gregg Rosenblum

Release: January 8, 2013

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Twenty years ago, the robots designed to fight our wars abandoned the battlefields. Then they turned their weapons on us.

Only a few escaped the robot revolution of 2071. Kevin, Nick, and Cass are lucky —they live with their parents in a secret human community in the woods. Then their village is detected and wiped out. Hopeful that other survivors have been captured by bots, the teens risk everything to save the only people they have left in the world—by infiltrating a city controlled by their greatest enemies.

Revolution 19 is a cinematic thriller unlike anything else. With a dynamic cast of characters, this surefire blockbuster has everything teen readers want—action, drama, mystery, and romance. Written by debut novelist Gregg Rosenblum, this gripping story shouldn’t be missed.

Read on for my interview with author Gregg Rosenblum!

Thank you for being here today, Gregg! Your young adult novel, REVOLUTION 19 is one of the first highly anticipated releases for 2013 and I’m thrilled to have you visit!

Your bio says that you work at Harvard in communications and technology. How does a Harvard man end up writing a young adult novel?

I’ve always considered myself a writer first and foremost…I spent years writing “serious” “adult” fiction and then finally realized to really have fun, I needed to return to the stuff that first blew my mind when I was a kid, and turned me into a book lover…scifi and fantasy.

Describe REVOLUTION 19 in ten words or less.

Robots take over. Their parents captured, so kids fight back.

Here’s a haiku:

Robots enslave man.
Their parents are imprisoned,
So the kids fight back.

For those who don’t know, REVOLUTION 19 is a science fiction about three teenage siblings searching for their human parents in a robot-controlled future world. Tell us where this awesome idea came from.

SciFi is always an extrapolation of the present, a plausible, possible “what if?”…I wanted to play with our ever-increasing reliance on technology, and take it to the point where everything backfires. And then it seemed fun to take three kids and put ‘em in a really tough spot, to watch them rise to the occasion, or perhaps in someways fail…

In a sci-fi novel it can sometimes be hard to balance the science and technologywith characterization. How did you make readers connect with Nick, Kevin, and Cass?

The relationship between the three siblings was very important to me. I wanted them to truly feel like a family, with all the love and dysfunction. And of course, they had to be separate, interesting individuals. Nick, the oldest, feels the weight of responsibility for guarding his siblings, but he can be too quick to anger. Cass is a great athlete, and an artist, and the peacemaker between her brothers, but can perhaps be too cautious. And Nick, the youngest, is naturally brilliant with technology, but is impetuous and can sometimes create more problems than he solves.

Will this be a series? If so, what can we look forward to in the series in the future?

Trilogy! I’m working on book 2 right now. I’ll be following the siblings as they continue to find ways to fight the bots, and try to rescue their parents. There may be some love triangles, and some death, and a betrayal or two…


Fast Five:
1. Favorite guilty pleasure: Billy Idol

2. Author you’d give your right arm to meet: Kurt Vonnegut

3. Best snack that helps you write better: Salt & Vinegar potato chips

4. Dream vacation destination: Tahiti, by teleporter

5. Favorite science fiction/fantasy movie: SciFi: A Clockwork Orange. Fantasy: Fellowship of the Ring

Thank you so much for visiting, Gregg! 

Check back for my review of REVOLUTION 19 very soon!

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Release Day Review: Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff

Paper Valentine
Brenna Yavanoff
Release: January 8, 2013
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The city of Ludlow is gripped by the hottest July on record. The asphalt is melting, the birds are dying, petty crime is on the rise, and someone in Hannah Wagnor’s peaceful suburban community is killing girls.

For Hannah, the summer is a complicated one. Her best friend Lillian died six months ago, and Hannah just wants her life to go back to normal. But how can things be normal when Lillian’s ghost is haunting her bedroom, pushing her to investigate the mysterious string of murders? Hannah’s just trying to understand why her friend self-destructed, and where she fits now that Lillian isn’t there to save her a place among the social elite. And she must stop thinking about Finny Boone, the big, enigmatic delinquent whose main hobbies seem to include petty larceny and surprising acts of kindness.

With the entire city in a panic, Hannah soon finds herself drawn into a world of ghost girls and horrifying secrets. She realizes that only by confronting the Valentine Killer will she be able move on with her life—and it’s up to her to put together the pieces before he strikes again.

Paper Valentine is a hauntingly poetic tale of love and death by the New York Times bestselling author of The Replacement and The Space Between.

Review:

Paper Valentine is a haunting story that perfectly balances eerie and beautiful. The story, wrote in present tense, introduces us to Hannah, a teen whose dead best friend is haunting her. Although Lillian and Hannah do have a lot of normal conversations, the reader never forgets that Lillian is, in fact, dead. Her gaunt looks remind us of how she died and her creepy habit of appearing suddenly and forcing Hannah to try and ignore her while around other people remind us what Hannah's day-to-day life as someone being haunted is like.

What makes Hannah and Lillian's relationship even more difficult is the manner in which Lillian died. Although we don't ever get intricate details of her death, we know what killed her and Yovanoff manages to show us the realistic fears of a teenage girl and the horrors of what an obsession to be perfect can lead to, all without sounding like a public service announcement.

The main plot of this book is the murder mystery, although I must say that equal time is really given to solving the murders, dealing with Lillian's death, and the subplot involving Finny, which I'll get to in just a second. Hannah becomes interested in the murders after realizing a connection between the current murder and a past murder. Her 'investigation' is actually very realistic, not like some young adult books that act like a teen girl can suddenly turn into the world's greatest private investigator overnight and outsmart all the cops. Hannah is a very believable teen and her interactions with the police were fairly spot on.

The third subplot is Hannah's growing relationship with Finny, an unusual love interest and one that I really loved. Finny is that good looking but slightly scary guy in high school who just couldn't pull up his grades, the one who was beyond rough around the edges but there was just something about him... I really liked watching Hannah and Finny because the rollout of their relationship was slow moving, in the best way, and I really liked how Yavanoff peeled back Finny's layers one at a time.

Paper Valentine is a ghost tale that combines disturbing murders, serious teenage issues, and a poignant look at first "like". This was a terrific introduction for me to Brenna Yovanoff's writing, and I will be checking out her other works for certain!

Recommended for fans of: ghost stories, murder mysteries, Yovanoff's other works, and The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

This review is based on an advance copy provided by the publisher.

    

  4 / 5 stars

Read This F@!%ing Book! (5)

Welcome to a feature I'm going to post from time to time called:

Read This F@!%ing Book!

This is a feature for me to push my favorite reads that just aren't getting enough attention! 

I'm also opening it up to anyone who would like to guest post. Do you have a book that you just LURVED but feel like its not getting the play it deserves? Email me to let me know and I'd be THRILLED to have you post about it here! Especially if its something I haven't reviewed yet - that's even better (but not necessary)! If you're interested email me:

Goldilox3weres@hotmail.com

Read This F@!%ing Book Post 5: 

The Dreg City Series by Kelly Meding

(Click cover for Goodreads)

   

(Click title for Amazon)

Three Days to Dead (Dreg City, Book 1)

As Lie the Dead (Dreg City, Book 2)

Another Kind of Dead (Dreg City, Book 3)

Wrong Side of Dead (Dreg City, Book 4)

Why I love it:

Meding's Dreg City series is a dark (dark, dark) urban fantasy series where the heroine gets her ass kicked as much as she kicks paranormal creatures' ass, her relationship with her boss is really complicated, and oh yeah, she's stuck in someone else's body. Meding isn't afraid to leave everyone bloody and exhausted by the story's end, both physically and emotionally.

Why I'm pushing it:

Even though this is a terrific series for UF lovers who like things a little on the dark and gritty side, its sales didn't meet expectations and the publisher decided to stop after book four. Thankfully, Meding has announced she is putting out at least a fifth book in early 2013, but this series needs our love and support people!

WYATT!

Evy and Wyatt have a tough and complicated relationship, since he's kind of her boss and a long time loyal to the organization that seems to constantly want her dead. Plus Evy is all kinds of messed up from a seriously rough life and likes to try and keep Wyatt at arm's length. But, Wyatt - sweet, steadfast, and kind of a badass in his own right - won't let her run away from him. He is pretty wonderful.

Well there you have it! If you haven't read this series I highly recommend it! 

If you'd like to participate in Read This F@!%ing Book let me know!

Interview and Giveaway - Delilah Dawson

As promised, I have some wonderful authors who will be at the Olde City New Blood con visiting the blog this week! For more information about the con, please visit my post HERE.

Please welcome my guest today:

Delilah Dawson!

(Click cover to go to Goodreads)

  

(Click title to go to Amazon)

Wicked as They Come (Blud #1)
Wicked as She Wants (Blud #2)
The Mysterious Madam Morpho (Blud #1.5)

Delilah was kind enough to answer some questions, and is offering a print copy of WICKED AS THEY COME and an ebook copy of THE MYSTERIOUS MADAM MORPHO to a lucky commenter!

For newbies, describe WICKED AS THEY COME in ten words or less.

Woman wakes in steampunk world, meets hot ringmaster. Rabbits attack!

How on earth did you come up with Criminy’s name - Criminy Stain? Did it just pop into your head one day or did it require a lot of thinking and searching?

It… um… came in a dream. And I thought it was ridiculous and offered to change it, if my editor wished. But she didn't. I have no idea how my subconscious concocted it, either. The entire book sprung from that one dream, the scene where the heroine meets the hero for the first time.

The world building in your Blud series is unique and complex. What does it take to create a world like that?

I had to make that dream make sense! I knew Criminy was a blood drinker, but I didn't want him to be a vampire, and I wanted him to wear top hats and tailcoats and tall boots, so I basically crafted an entire world around making it possible for him to exist. Everything else, from the clockworks to the bludbunnies, was just a logical conclusion.

What has been your favorite reward/perk since becoming a published author?

Getting to meet amazing people, both online and in real life. From fun conversations on Twitter to meeting readers and bloggers at cons to getting my favorite books signed by authors I admire to building lasting friendships with other writers, I love the literary community so much.

What can readers expect from the next in the series, WICKED AS SHE WANTS?

A feisty heroine, an exciting adventure, more world-building centered on the Bludmen, lots of Walt Whitman, and my attempt to make Casper Sterling the most attractive man alive.

Fast Five:

1. Favorite guilty pleasure

I don't believe in guilt. :) But I guess it would be cake.

2. Authors that inspired you

Deanna Raybourn, Gail Carriger, Meljean Brook, Diana Gabaldon, Sara Donati, Charlaine Harris, Stephen King. I could keep going...

3. Snacks that power your writing

Coffee. Wine. Tea. I forget to eat when I'm first drafting, but when editing, I spoil myself with beignets and sushi and cupcakes.

4. Celebrity crush

Ryan Reynolds as Hannibal King in Blade 3. I get celebrities all tangled up with the roles they play. As you yourself said, it's all about ABS AND SNARK. :) I also like Jonathan Rhys Meyers for that reason. (Goldilox: I did totally say that!)

5. Best Steampunk accessory

Corsets. Always corsets.


About the Author:

Delilah S. Dawson comes from a long line of Roswell, GA natives. WICKED AS THEY COME is the first in her Blud series for Pocket/S&S, and a creepy paranormal YA, SERVANTS OF THE STORM, will be out with Simon Pulse in 2014. Delilah is a member of the Romance Writers of America and the Georgia Romance Writers. She is also an Associate Editor at www.CoolMomPicks.com and www.CoolMomTech.com, where she is given the more eccentric and geeky products to cover. Delilah lives with her husband, two small children, and two cats in Atlanta. Find out more at www.delilahsdawson.com.

Enter to win a print copy of WICKED AS THEY COME and a PDF/Nook copy of THE MYSTERIOUS MADAM MORPHO, US/Can residents only please.

 

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