Review:Given To The Sea by Mindy McGinnis

Title:Given to the Sea
Author: Mindy McGinnis 
Release Date:April 11th 2017 
Publisher: Putnam's Childrens

Khosa is Given to the Sea, a girl born to be fed to the water, her flesh preventing a wave like the one that destroyed the Kingdom of Stille in days of old. But before she’s allowed to dance – an uncontrollable twitching of the limbs that will carry her to the shore in a frenzy – she must produce an heir. Yet the thought of human touch sends shudders down her spine that not even the sound of the tide can match.

Vincent is third in line to inherit his throne, royalty in a kingdom where the old linger and the young inherit only boredom. When Khosa arrives without an heir he knows his father will ensure she fulfills her duty, at whatever cost. Torn between protecting the throne he will someday fill, and the girl whose fate is tied to its very existence, Vincent’s loyalty is at odds with his heart.

Dara and Donil are the last of the Indiri, a native race whose dwindling magic grows weaker as the island country fades. Animals cease to bear young, creatures of the sea take to the land, and the Pietra – fierce fighters who destroyed the Indiri a generation before – are now marching from their stony shores for the twin’s adopted homeland, Stille.

Witt leads the Pietra, their army the only family he has ever known. The stone shores harbor a secret, a growing threat that will envelop the entire land – and he will conquer every speck of soil to ensure the survival of his people.

The tides are turning in Stille, where royals scheme, Pietrans march, and the rising sea calls for its Given.

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Mindy McGinnis is one of my favorite authors so when I saw that she had a new book coming out I had to get it and give it a read. Fun fact even though I ordered Given To The Sea well in advance it took me weeks to finally read the book. However once I stared it didn't take me very long to finish reading Given To The Sea. Then I had to reread the novel because I wasn't 100% sure what I just read and If I even liked it...

There are four POVs. Which was a bit confusing at first but it wasn't to bad after a while.I think my favorite POV was from  Khosa. Khosa is a bit hard to like at first but after a while she grows on you and she also spends most of her time in a library. There is a love square involved (:/) which isn't as weird or ridiculous as you would thing.The character's were a bit hit or miss for me and I'm curious about how they will develop in the possible sequel. The world building was nice,but I really with we could have been given more background on the Indiri.

 The cover is eerie,vibrant and really quite lovely. One thing I like about Mindy McGinnis, is that she writes about social issues.So it's not all that surprising that that carried over into her fantasy world. Here, she shows a flawed society full of sexism, racism, and ableism that our main characters have to face.So even though I'm not a huge fan of this particular novel, I cant deny that Mindy is a dam good author that gave writing fantasy the good ole college try.This books was not for me but I can kinda see why others would like Given To The Sea.2/5

Waiting on Wednesday(77) Like Water & The Memory Trees

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: Like Water
Author:  Rebecca Podos
Release Date: October 17,2017
Publisher: Balzer + Bray

A gorgeously written and deeply felt literary young adult novel of identity, millennial anxiety, and first love, from the widely acclaimed author of The Mystery of Hollow Places

In Savannah Espinoza’s small New Mexico hometown, kids either flee after graduation or they’re trapped there forever. Vanni never planned to get stuck—but that was before her father was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, leaving her and her mother to care for him. Now, she doesn’t have much of a plan at all: living at home, working as a performing mermaid at a second-rate water park, distracting herself with one boy after another.

That changes the day she meets Leigh. Disillusioned with small-town life and looking for something greater, Leigh is not a “nice girl.” She is unlike anyone Vanni has met, and a friend when Vanni desperately needs one. Soon enough, Leigh is much more than a friend. But caring about another person stirs up the moat Vanni has carefully constructed around herself, and threatens to bring to the surface the questions she’s held under for so long.


With her signature stunning writing, Rebecca Podos, author of The Mystery of Hollow Places, has crafted a story of first love and of the complex ways in which the deepest parts of us are hidden, even from ourselves.

That cover, that synopsis, and mermaids!!! Like Water sounds Uhmazing.

Title: The Memory Trees

Author: Kali Wallace

Release Date:  October 10th, 2017

Publisher: Katherine Tegan Books

The Memory Trees is a dark magical realism novel about a mysterious family legacy, a centuries-old feud, and a tragic loss that resurfaces when sixteen-year-old Sorrow returns to her mother’s family orchard for the summer.

Sorrow Lovegood’s life has been shaped by the stories of the women who came before her: brave, resilient women who settled long ago on a mercurial apple orchard in Vermont. The land has been passed down through generations, and Sorrow and her family take pride in its strange history. Their offbeat habits may be ridiculed by other townspeople—especially their neighbors, the Abrams family—but for the first eight years of her life, the orchard is Sorrow’s whole world. 

Then one winter night everything changes. Sorrow’s sister Patience is tragically killed. Their mother suffers a mental breakdown. Sorrow is sent to live with her dad in Miami, away from the only home she’s ever known.

Now sixteen, Sorrow’s memories of her life in Vermont are maddeningly hazy; even the details of her sister’s death are unclear. She returns to the orchard for the summer, determined to learn more about her troubled childhood and the family she left eight years ago. Why has her mother kept her distance over the years? What actually happened the night Patience died? Is the orchard trying to tell her something, or is she just imagining things? 

Why am I excited, because I love apples..but really though I love a good fantasy/magical realism book! I'm here for the family reputation on the line, century-old feuding, and  hopefully a little Montague, and Capulet love story.... So that's what we're waiting on this Wednesday.

 So how about you? Leave a link and let us know. :)

Release Blitz:Achilles by Greg Boose

About The Author

Greg Boose is the former Los Angeles and Chicago Editor for BlackBook Magazine , and his work has appeared online and in print publications. Greg holds an undergraduate degree from Miami University and an MFA from Minnesota State University Moorhead.

He lives in Santa Monica with his two young daughters. He has previously published The Red Bishop with Full Fathom Five Digital, as well as ghostwriting two Young Adult novels that hit T he New York Times ' bestseller list. Visit him online at www.gregboose.com.

 WEBSITE ~ TWITTER~ INSTAGRAM 

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Title: Achilles
Author: Greg Boose
Release Date: September 26,2017

Lost meets The 100 in this action-packed YA science fiction series-starter.

"WE'RE ON OUR OWN NOW..."

The year is 2221, and humans have colonized a planet called Thetis in the Silver Foot Galaxy. After a tragic accident kills dozens of teenage colonists, Thetis’s leaders are desperate to repopulate. So Earth sends the Mayflower 2—a state-of-the-art spaceship—across the universe to bring 177 new homesteaders to the colony.

For Jonah Lincoln, an orphaned teen who has bounced between foster homes and spent time on the streets of Cleveland, the move to Thetis is a chance to reinvent himself, to be strong and independent and brave, the way he could never be on Earth. But his dreams go up in smoke when their ship crash-lands, killing half the passengers and leaving the rest stranded—not on Thetis, but on its cruel and unpopulated moon, Achilles.

Between its bloodthirsty alien life forms and its distance from their intended location, Achilles is a harrowing landing place. When all of the adult survivors suddenly disappear, leaving the teenage passengers to fend for themselves, Jonah doubts they’ll survive at all, much less reach Thetis—especially when it appears Achilles isn’t as uninhabited as they were led to believe.

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Buy Links (Amazon, B&N, Indiebound, etc are here):

http://diversionbooks.com/ebooks/achilles-deep-sky-saga-book-one

Website
http://diversionbooks.com/

Twitter
https://twitter.com/diversionbooks

Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/diversionbooks/

Waiting on Wednesday(76) Calling My Name & House of Ash

 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: Calling My Name
Author:  Liara Tamani
Release Date: October 24th 2017
Publisher: Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins

Taja Brown lives with her parents and older brother and younger sister, in Houston, Texas. Taja has always known what the expectations of her conservative and tightly-knit family are—do well in school, go to church every Sunday, no intimacy before marriage. But Taja is trying to keep up with friends as they get their first kisses, first boyfriends, first everythings. And she’s tired of cheering for her athletic younger sister and an older brother who has more freedom just because he’s a boy. Taja dreams of going to college and forging her own relationship with the world and with God, but when she falls in love for the first time, those dreams are suddenly in danger of evaporating.




Title: House of Ash
Author: Hope Cook
Release Date: September 26th 2017
Publisher: Amulet Books/ Abrams

After hearing voices among an eerie copse of trees in the woods, seventeen-year-old Curtis must confront his worst fear: that he has inherited his father’s mental illness. A desperate search for answers leads him to discover Gravenhearst, a labyrinth mansion that burned down in 1894. When he locks eyes with a steely Victorian girl in a forgotten mirror, he’s sure she’s one of the fire’s victims. If he can unravel the mystery, he can save his sanity . . . and possibly the girl who haunts his dreams.

But more than 100 years in the past, the girl in the mirror is fighting her own battles. When her mother disappears and her sinister stepfather reveals his true intentions, Mila and her sister fight to escape Gravenhearst and unravel the house’s secrets—before it devours them both.

So that's what we're waiting on this Wednesday.

 So how about you? Leave a link and let us know. :)

Teaser Tuesday: Into White

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Ambrosia @ The Purple Booker.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read.
• Open to a random page.
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR 
• Lists if they like your teasers!

" I marched my heavy feet upstairs. The door creaked open, and there was Jesus standing in the middle of my bedroom. I'm not sure how, but I knew it was him."

Pg 15 Toya Into White Randi Pink

Waiting on Wednesday(75) Say You'l Remember Me & The Ravenous

 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: The Ravenous
Author:Amy Lukavics
Release Date:September 26th 2017
Publiser: Harlequin Teen

From the outside, the Cane family looks like they have it all. A successful military father, a loving mother and five beautiful teenage daughters. But on the inside, life isn't quite so idyllic: the Cane sisters can barely stand each other, their father is always away, and their neglectful mother struggles with addiction and depression.

When their youngest and most beloved sister, Rose, dies in a tragic accident, Mona Cane and her sisters are devastated. And when she is brought back from the dead, they are relieved. But soon they discover that Rose must eat human flesh to survive, and when their mother abandons them, the sisters will find out just how far they'll go to keep their family together.


Title:Say You'l Remember Me
Author: Katie McGarry
Release Date January 30th 2018
 Publisher: Harlequin Teen

When Drix was convicted of a crime--one he didn't commit--he thought his life was over. But opportunity came with the new Second Chance Program, the governor's newest pet project to get delinquents off the streets, rehabilitated and back into society. Drix knows this is his chance to get his life back on track, even if it means being paraded in front of reporters for a while.

Elle knows she lives a life of privilege. As the governor's daughter, she can open doors with her name alone. But the expectations and pressure to be someone she isn't may be too much to handle. She wants to follow her own path, whatever that means.

When Drix and Elle meet, their connection is immediate, but so are their problems. Drix is not the type of boy Elle's parents have in mind for her, and Elle is not the kind of girl who can understand Drix's messy life.

But sometimes love can breach all barriers.

Fighting against a society that can't imagine them together, Drix and Elle must push themselves--Drix to confront the truth of the robbery, and Elle to assert her independence--and each other to finally get what they deserve.

So that's what we're waiting on this Wednesday.

 So how about you? Leave a link and let us know. :)

Teaser Tuesday(10): I Believe In A Thing Called Love

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Ambrosia @ The Purple Booker.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read.
• Open to a random page.
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR 
• Lists if they like your teasers!

 " I Watched Bob Ross videos until my eyes bled,but I still couldn't paint a sycamore tree that didn't look like a piece of broccoli."

Pg 223 Desi I Believe In A Thing Called Love Mauren Goo