Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Waiting on Wednesday(43)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill from Breaking the Spine, and specifically spotlights upcoming novels we can't wait to read. As always, there are some amazing upcoming books, but this week I'm particularly excited for...

Title: Never
Author: Shay Lynam
Release Date: November 4,2014
Publisher:  Indie World Publishing and Author Services
Wynn Harper spends her days trying to blend into the background. This isn't very easy, especially being the great granddaughter of the late Wendy Darling. Wynn used to love Great Gran's stories about her adventures in Neverland with Peter Pan and his lost boys, but that's all they were. Just stories, right? That's what Wynn keeps telling herself.

But then she meets Peter, the beautiful boy with a voice to match, and when he whisks her off to Neverland, Wynn knows this is no fairy tale. The lost boys are a group of rebellious ex-pirates, young Hook has a soft side, and Peter Pan isn't as innocent as you might think
You all should know by now how much I love a retelling or book based of a classic story by now
I recently found out about this novel and I can't wait to read it.
So that's what I'm waiting. So how about you? Leave a link and let me know. :)

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Top Ten Characters Who I Would Totally Want To Be For Halloween(24)

Check out how Top Ten Tuesday works & the future schedule of topics HERE.The Top Ten Tuesday, is hosted by the ever-fabulous The Broke and the Bookish   This  meme was created because they are particularly fond of lists at The Broke and the Bookish.
Top Ten Characters Who I Would Totally Want To Be For Halloween
(from mainly books & a few from tv or a movie)
  1. A Hufflepuff from The Harry Potter Series
  2. Tiger Lilly from Tiger Lily By Jodi Lyn Anderson because with my messy hair I'm half way there.
  3. Peter Pan from Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie I feel like i'd rock that green outfit.
  4. Allison Sekemoto from the Blood Eden series by Juuie Kawaga
  5. Ursula from the Little Mermaid because she's fierce plus big and beautiful. 
  6.  Clary Frey from the Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare .Mainly cause I'd really like to do all those shadow-hunter tattoos.
  7. Karou from the Daughter of Smoke and Bones by Lani Taylor in either her human forrn with that awesome hair color or her in her chimaeraform because come on wings.
  8. Marcaline from Adventure Time
  9. The Mouse from the children book If You Give A mouse a cookie 
  10. Mulan in her warrior garb because I would love having a sword.

So that's my Top Ten List from the day,tell me what you think & send me a link for yours.:)

Monday, October 27, 2014

Desert Tales

Title: Desert Tales
Author: Melissa Marr

Return to the world of Melissa Marr's bestselling series and discover how the events of Wicked Lovely set a different faery tale in motion. . . . Originally presented as a manga series and now available for the first time as a stand-alone novel, Desert Tales combines tentative romance, outward strength, and inner resolve in a faery story of desert and destiny.

The Mojave Desert was a million miles away from the plots and schemes of the Faerie Courts—and that's exactly why Rika chose it as her home. The once-mortal faery retreated to the desert's isolation after decades of carrying winter's curse inside her body. But her seclusion—and the freedom of the desert fey—is threatened by the Summer King's newfound strength. And when the manipulations of her trickster friend, Sionnach, thrust Rika into a new romance, she finds new power within herself—and a new desire to help Sionnach protect the desert fey and mortals alike. The time for hiding is over

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This novel was a set of three Graphic novels originally. I didn't read the graphic novels, but was excited that she turned it into a novel.It is about Rika (a Winter Girl before Donia), Sionnach (the desert alpha & a fox faery), and Jayce (human male). Some scenes with Keenan & Donia, but no other characters from the series make an appearance in the book.

Rika is a former Winter girl who ran to the desert to be free,while there she's apart of the solitary fey world but barley talks or interacts with the other except  Sionnach the desert Alpha. Then thanks to Keenan coming to the desert, Sionnach's meddling and Rika's love of a mortal Rika went on a journey to become the strong fairy she always was already. Sionnach is what really made this a good book. He is clever, witty, mysterious and I really enjoyed reading from his perspective when it happened.Jace is just the sweetest and took the whole fey thing like a champ. The story was well written and I loved the ending even if it was a bit  bittersweet .

The cover is quite lovely and the font and design around the title match with the other novels perfectly.I love this book, and  I loved the Wicked Lovely series and so glad that Marr is taking the tale farther with all the novellas, graphic novels and this standalone novel.Also there might be a Wicked Lovely Movie!!!! 5/5

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Cinderlla's Dress

Title: Cinderlla's Dress
Author:

Being a teen-ager during World War II is tough. Finding out you're the next keeper of the real Cinderella's dress is even tougher.

Kate simply wants to create window displays at the department store where she's working, trying to help out with the war effort. But when long-lost relatives from Poland arrive with a steamer trunk they claim holds the Cinderella's dress, life gets complicated.

Now, with a father missing in action, her new sweetheart shipped off to boot camp, and her great aunt losing her wits, Kate has to unravel the mystery before it's too late.

After all, the descendants of the wicked stepsisters will stop at nothing to get what they think they deserve


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So at first I thought that this book was going to be a Cinderella retelling but I quickly realized that was not going to be the case.It takes the magic of Cinderella's tale picking out bits and pieces  that are used to tell an entirely different story that is, all in all, intriguing and adorable
 
 The story itself follows Kate as she tries to follow her dream of creating window displays in the department store she works at, but it's the 1940's and this isn't something a woman does. I really loved Kate as a character. She was strong willed and knew what she wanted. Of course she made a couple of silly mistakes a long the way but - after a little push - she always made the right decision in the end. The character of Johnny is the perfect book crush.. He's snarky but in a good-natured way.He didn't hold a grudge, and he was a darn good letter writer. The relationship between Johnny Day & Kate was super sweet.The cast of characters  was wonderful and the plot while slow paced at times kept you wanting more. The only thing that bothered me about the book was how during the first half of the book with the constant letters back and forth during the war, the time mysteriously jumped.... Other than this I enjoyed Cinderella's Dress.
 
The cover is pretty breath taking, I just love it.i'd recommend this book to anyone who loves historical fiction mixed with fairy tales. This book also leaves many questions unanswered so be prepared...possible sequel  3/5

Flat-Out Celeste

Flat-Out Celeste (Flat-Out Love, #2)
For high-school senior Celeste Watkins, every day is a brutal test of bravery. And Celeste is scared. Alienated because she’s too smart, her speech too affected, her social skills too far outside the norm, she seems to have no choice but to retreat into isolation.

But college could set her free, right? If she can make it through this grueling senior year, then maybe. If she can just find that one person to throw her a lifeline, then maybe, just maybe.

Justin Milano, a college sophomore with his own set of quirks, could be that person to pull her from a world of solitude. To rescue her—that is, if she’ll let him.

Together, they may work. Together, they may save each other. And together they may also save another couple—two people Celeste knows are absolutely, positively flat-out in love.


Whether you were charmed by Celeste in Flat-Out Love or are meeting her for the first time, this book is a joyous celebration of differences, about battling private wars that rage in our heads and in our hearts, and—very much so— this is a story about first love


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Celeste, Matt’s little sister was beyond her years smart, loveable, but socially awkward in Flat-Out Love. Celeste, as well as the rest of the family were on the verge of a total meltdown after suffering an unimaginable loss. Julie (Matt’s love interest) was instrumental in their road to healing and in the years that have since past, the Watkins family has made many positive strides. 
 
Celeste is now 18 years old and she is a senior in high school. After years of being isolated, socially awkward, and feeling that she will never fit somewhere. Suddenly she meets Justin who is as weird as she is!!!Celeste was relatable in her quirkiness and still was a remarkable character. I liked seeing her progress as the story went on to a more confident girl. Reading about Celeste navigating high school and making friends ships with people instead of staying closed off was awesome. The same goes with her encounters with Justin, they are just the sweetest. Justin Milano is a student liaison for Barton College who contacts Celeste through several rambling emails trying to woo her to attend his school. Through the emails Celeste and Justin develop a friendship.   The characters were never flat and seemed like people you would want to be around. I liked that the author gave us a glimpses of what happened with Matt & Julie and their story was still fresh and slightly adorable.

The cover is absolutely gorgeous and while it has a different look than the covers for Flat-Out-Love and Flat-Out-Mat it still has the hinges in the title which is super cute. The story/plot defiantly drew me in and is more than likely to intrigue anyone who has read Flat-Out Matt or even anyone who has not.4/5

TEASER&TRAILOR: No Such Thing As Perfect By Sarah Daltry


 
 
 





 






 
 

All In One PROMO !!: No Such Thing as Perfect for Sarah Daltry


NO SUCH THING AS PERFECT
CONTEMPORARY REALISTIC YA

Author: Sarah Daltry



College was supposed to be perfect. She was supposed to be perfect.
For Lily Drummond, life is about following the rules. To be specific, her mother’s rules. College fit into the plan – maintain perfect grades, date the perfect guy, and live the perfect life. On her own, though, Lily realizes that she doesn’t actually have a plan. Without being told what to think and do, she keeps making mistakes.
Away from home, the perfect facade is beginning to shatter. When Lily herself starts to break, it’s the support of an unlikely friend that teaches her how much of a lie perfect really is – and how to be whole on her own terms.

Release Date: December 12, 2014 (tentative)

Preorders to be available in November unless something changes.



“My name’s Lily and James Naismith ruined high school for me,” I offer.

It’s too hot in this room. The window fan is blowing nothing but heat over us, along with some old dust or dirt from the window. It makes the noise of plastic that is being asked to do more than plastic can do; the fan’s cheapness makes it too weak to be a fan and it groans with its own failure.

I’m not good with social events. This is some kind of mandated floor meeting for all new students and I’m sitting in the middle of my RA’s room with ten other girls, all of us in pajama pants, and trying to sound interesting.

“I mean, he didn’t personally. I think he died almost a hundred years ago,” I stutter.

“So why don’t you explain how the inventor of basketball did ruin high school then?” one girl asks. She’s angry, but I don’t know her. I don’t know anyone, except my roommate Kristen and so far all I know about her is that she’s majoring in education, she brought the fridge, and she’s decorated her side of our dorm room to look like the inside of a Pepto-Bismol bottle. This girl doesn’t want to hear my story. She doesn’t want to be here, but I don’t, either, and now that I’m here, I was the one dumb enough to open my mouth.

“It was gym class,” I try to explain. “I don’t know. Something about ed reform. We had homework and tests and all that in gym now and I’d been up all night writing an essay about James Naismith. I hadn’t slept and I was in a rush trying to make the bus that morning.”

It had been cold, the rushing towards winter that mirrors the years that aren’t like this one. This is one where summer lingers and it resists every attempt to make it yield to fall. I remember the leaves were already falling that year, even though it was only early September. Some years it seemed like they were in a greater rush to die. In the moments between life, each leaf took its suicidal leap and fell slowly while no one noticed. We always only notice when they’re all dead and suddenly the sky hangs on us and we crave shade.

The bus was about to pull away from the curb near my house and I cried out for it, running faster and slipping on a clump of leaves. The entire patch was squishy. I wondered as I fell if I had taken out a small family of worms in my descent. My outfit was ruined, but it wasn’t the clothes that scared me…

“I tripped on leaves and fell on the driveway hard. The gravel left a slash along my cheek and it looked like someone had punched me. That was the day of school pictures, which we used for the yearbook and our IDs. Not to mention the fact that my mom…” I can’t finish. I don’t want to take about my mother. I certainly don’t feel like confiding in these girls about how disappointed she was that I had ruined everything. It wasn’t my fault that fall had come early, but I ruined the pictures and in her album of school photos, my freshman year still remains a giant, empty black page. A constant reminder that I will never be whole, never be perfect, never be what she wanted.

“What about your mom?” someone else asks.

“Nothing.” I don’t want to tell my story anymore. I want the fan to stop trying. I want it to be tomorrow and the day after and any day when I can start in the morning and get through to night without making a mistake.

It’s dropped, though, anyway, because Ellie, the RA, turns to someone else who is pocketing a handful of condoms. “You don’t need to take them all,” she barks. “I have plenty, but other people practice safe sex, too. Unless you’re planning on having a massive orgy tonight, you can probably come back and get some later.”

The condom hoarder blushes and returns half her pile and the floor meeting turns back to pointless small talk and ice breakers that no one wants to be a part of. The fan clicks another meaningless rotation. I’ve been a college student for six hours now and I’ve never been so lonely in my entire life.



Sarah Daltry is a YA author, hardcore gamer, sarcastic nerd, and obsessive Anglophile who watches too much BBC TV. She is the author of Backward Compatible: A Gamer Geek Love Story, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock: A Modern Reimagining, Bitter Fruits, and the upcoming YA fantasy, Dust. No Such Thing as Perfect was inspired by Sarah's original Flowering series, but is a completely different take on similar concepts.

When she's not writing, Sarah spends a lot of time with her Xbox and her cats.
Yay Free Things! :)
Enter to win a signed ARC!
 

 
 

Waiting on Wednesday(42) Invaded

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill from Breaking the Spine, and specifically spotlights upcoming novels we can't wait to read. As always, there are some amazing upcoming books, but this week I'm particularly excited for...


Title: Invaded (Alienated 2)
Release Date: February 3,2015
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
The romantic sequel to Alienated takes long-distance relationships to a new level as Cara and Aelyx long for each other from opposite ends of the universe...until a threat to both their worlds reunites them.

Cara always knew life on planet L’eihr would be an adjustment. With Aelyx, her L’eihr boyfriend, back on Earth, working to mend the broken alliance between their two planets, Cara is left to fend for herself at a new school, surrounded by hostile alien clones. Even the weird dorm pet hates her.

Things look up when Cara is appointed as human representative to a panel preparing for a human colony on L’eihr. A society melding their two cultures is a place where Cara and Aelyx could one day make a life together. But with L’eihr leaders balking at granting even the most basic freedoms, Cara begins to wonder if she could ever be happy on this planet, even with Aelyx by her side.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Aelyx, finds himself thrown into a full-scale PR campaign to improve human-L’eihr relations. Humans don’t know that their very survival depends on this alliance: only Aelyx’s people have the technology to fix the deadly contamination in the global water supply that human governments are hiding. Yet despite their upper hand, the leaders of his world suddenly seem desperate to get humans on their side, and hardly bat an eye at extremists’ multiple attempts on Aelyx’s life.
So if anyone was a fan of the show Star-Crossed on The CW for the one& only season it aired then you'll be a fan of the Alienated books. Seriously Check out the first one!
So that's what I'm waiting. So how about you? Leave a link and let me know. :)

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Rebecca Finlayson

Hello! My name is Rebecca Finlayson (though I mostly go by Becky) and I am a Teaching Assistant and writer!Tea Fiend. 'X&Y' and 'The Secrets of Nethiaria: The Magician's Book' available on Kindle now. She lives in Coventry, UK with my husband John and our wonderful housemate, Kat. You can find me on Twitter: @finlaysonauthor











 
1)How did you come up with the concept for X&Y?
I used to work as a Teaching Assistant and one day I was supporting a Religious Studies class that was discussing genetic engineering as part of their ethics topic. It got me to thinking if a whole country implemented genetic engineering, what would it look like? That, coupled with the fact that I was reading 1984 by George Orwell at the time inspired, what I thought, was an interesting story.

2) What are you working on now?
 I just released my second book on Kindle, a fantasy novel entitled "The Secrets of Nethiaria: The Magician's Book". It tells the tale of a sixteen year old called Esme, who finds out she is the daughter of the King and Queen in a land called Ellush in the far-off world of Nethiaria. Hidden away on Earth until now for her own protection, she is fated to go back and find an immensely powerful and mysterious flower called the Laminia, whose power she will harness to defeat the evil, power-hungry Lord Mordrian. I am also in my first draft of a post-apocalyptic story called 'The Dome', in which the last of earth's people are gathered together under the safety of a technology called 'The Dome', while the earth recovers after war.

3) Favorite genre to read?
 I honestly like reading all sorts, but I think one genre I will always fall back on is fantasy. I love seeing the worlds that different people build in their minds and put onto paper. I think it's incredible. 

4) Which reading format do you prefer: Paperbacks, Hardcovers or E-books?
Paperbacks. I love the feel of a book in my hand, and while I try to take good care of them, they do end up looking a bit too 'loved' (read: worn).

5) Who or what inspired you to become a writer?
I was inspired to become a writer just because I had too many stories and characters floating around in my head to contain them all. I wouldn't say there is one particular person who has inspired be, but there are a few particular authors whose work I read drives me to become better in my writing - for example, I will read anything by Joanne Harris or Kazuo Ishiguro because their work is just outstanding. 

6) Zombie filled world  or Dystopian world  Why?
 Dystopian, purely because I feel I would be better at joining the revolution against whatever system was in place, rather than trying to escape from zombies. I'd rather take on 'The Man' than the undead. 'The Man' would not try to eat my brains, for one. 

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