Review: Wait For You

Title: Wait for You
Author: J. Lynn
Page Count: 332
Release Date: September 3, 2013
My Rating: 4 TURTLES: A great read, I definitely recommend.
Publisher: William Morrow

Synopsis:

Traveling thousands of miles from home to enter college is the only way nineteen-year-old Avery Morgansten can escape what happened at the Halloween party five years ago—an event that forever changed her life. All she needs to do is make it to her classes on time, make sure the bracelet on her left wrist stays in place, not draw any attention to herself, and maybe—please God—make a few friends, because surely that would be a nice change of pace. The one thing she didn’t need and never planned on was capturing the attention of the one guy who could shatter the precarious future she’s building for herself.

Cameron Hamilton is six feet and three inches of swoon-worthy hotness, complete with a pair of striking blue eyes and a remarkable ability to make her want things she believed were irrevocably stolen from her. She knows she needs to stay away from him, but Cam is freaking everywhere, with his charm, his witty banter, and that damn dimple that’s just so… so lickable. Getting involved with him is dangerous, but when ignoring the simmering tension that sparks whenever they are around each other becomes impossible, he brings out a side of her she never knew existed.

But when Avery starts receiving threatening emails and phone calls forcing her to face a past she wants silenced, she’s has no other choice but to acknowledge that someone is refusing to allow her to let go of that night when everything changed. When the devastating truth comes out, will she resurface this time with one less scar? And can Cam be there to help her or will he be dragged down with her?

Review:

I picked up Wait for You at ALA and didn't know what to expect. I hadn't read anything by the author before and the cover looks like any old romance-y type of story, but I decided to give it a shot since I've had good luck with New Adult before. I was very pleasantly surprised when I found myself really liking this book. Not only is it a sweet romance, but it deals with serious real life issues as well that don't get talked about as often as they might be.

I really appreciated the author's honesty with how she portrayed Avery and how the tragic event earlier in her life affected her. Several other times when I've read about abuse and adverse events in young adult and new adult, the writing hasn't felt true or tactful enough. I appreciate bluntness, but I think there is a way to write it without sounding insensitive. I can't even pin down what it is exactly - and maybe it's just me - but I can tell when it is there and when it isn't, and this book had it.

A funny thing is that one of the other things I liked about the book was also one of my biggest complaints: Cam was a bit of a knight in shining armor. Yes, he had done something in the past that he was ashamed of, but if that hadn't happened he would have been way to perfect. He, of course, is gorgeous, as is everyone in his family. Of course he is a popular reformed party animal who takes notice of Avery out of everyone else on campus. Now, the emotional reader part of me is swooning, but my intellectual, review-minded reader part of me is like "seriously? why doesn't the author just give him a pet turtle just for the kicks and giggles of the writer of the Howling Turtle. What is that I see - he does have a pet turtle? of course he does. (meanwhile emotional reader part of me is doing cartwheels). My other complaint is also one that I am torn about. In the novel, Avery keeps going back and forth between wanting to be with Cam, but having a hard time because she keeps getting triggered and then feeling embarrassed and avoiding Cam. I feel torn because it feels realistic given what she's been through, but for the sake of the sorry I wish she hadn't flip-flopped so much because it got a tinsy bit boring because I knew that they'd eventually get back together at some point.

I'd say that Wait for You is one of the best NA novels I've read and that if you are a fan of NA or contemporary romance it is definitely worth your time to check out.


Buy Wait for You on Amazon

Review: Doon

Title: Doon
Authors: Carey Corp & Lorie Langdon
Page Count: 368
Release Date: August 20th, 2013
My Rating: 1 TURTLE: A bad read. I barely got through it/ didn't finish it.
Publisher: Blink


Synopsis:
Veronica doesn't think she's going crazy. But why can't anyone else see the mysterious blond boy who keeps popping up wherever she goes? When her best friend, Mackenna, invites her to spend the summer in Scotland, Veronica jumps at the opportunity to leave her complicated life behind for a few months. 

But the Scottish countryside holds other plans. 

Not only has the imaginary kilted boy followed her to Alloway, she and Mackenna uncover a strange set of rings and a very unnerving letter from Mackenna's great aunt—and when the girls test the instructions Aunt Gracie left behind, they find themselves transported to a land that defies explanation. Doon seems like a real-life fairy tale, complete with one prince who has eyes for Mackenna and another who looks suspiciously like the boy from Veronica's daydreams. But Doon has a dark underbelly as well. The two girls could have everything they've longed for...or they could end up breaking an enchantment and find themselves trapped in a world that has become a nightmare.

Review:

This was a Did-Not-Finish, and I read almost 150 pages of this book before I had to stop reading. When I went to ALA a few months back, before I got onto the floor I promised myself I'd only pick out books that looked interesting to me as if I were in a bookstore. But when someone was standing there, handing out free copies to people as the authors signed the books, I couldn't help myself, and hoped I'd be pleasantly surprised even though the synopsis didn't grab me. I'm not the type to idly give up books if I'm not enthralled by page one, but from the beginning had some very big issues with this book. I kept on going for as long as I could, but eventually it got to the point that I'd get mad whenever I started reading, so I had to stop.

The plot was not original. We've all read the story of the normal teenage girl who gets swept off to a magical kingdom, but that wasn't a problem in and of itself. I don't mind unoriginal plots if the writing and character development makes up for it. It did not. The writing was jerky, one moment the teenage voice of the main character narrating first person, and in the next riddled with overly flowery similes and metaphors. This did not make the writing sound sophisticated, it made it sound clunky and didn't feel true to how a regular girl would tell a story. Another thing that really ticked me off about the writing was the authors' choice to write out phonetically the accent of everyone who wasn't American. Once the characters were in Doon, Veronica and Kenna were the only ones' whose dialogue was written correctly. For example, when anyone calls Veronica's name, and they are speaking in a Scottish accent, it is spelled Verranica. Your is replaced with yer, very with verra, and so on. We all know the kilt wearing bloke has a brogue, so just say that and be done with it! I know that if I were reading a novel with a Scottish author who wrote American dialogue phonetically that would be just as annoying.

The book switches POV between the friends, Veronica and Kenna, and out of the two, Veronica was a bit more likable, but only by a little bit. pretty much every chapter both of the girls would say how beautiful their bestie was and how awkward and ugly they were, and then it would switch. Vee is into dance and books, and Kenna is a Theater buff who thinks her friend is a nerd for liking to read. implying that her friend is a bit weird for being so smart and describing people with descriptions like they're "a goth kid with a Jedi complex". (I didn't reference that with a complete copy, but that's just an example of the type of stuff she said). Of course for Kenna liking Star Wars is weird, but it's totally not weird for her to use exclamations like "Sweet Baby Sondheim" and "Holy Hammerstein". At first I thought it would be neat to have a character into musicals, but when that character's only basis for comparison in life is how this is like that scene in Phantom, or that person is like Mary Poppins, it got old fast. (Also on a side note, one thing that personally really bugs me is when YA books reference other YA books, which this one did. Yes, I realize if I found myself at a magical school I would probably compare it to Hogwarts, but it bugs me when YA authors do it because it feels like they are standing on other writers work instead of creating their own awesomeness. But I digress).

Besides the writing and the characters, what bothered me most about this book was its lack of verisimilitude, it just didn't feel real to me. Yeah, verisimilitude in a fantasy, I know, but that's important for me. Even if there is a magical kingdom, I still want it to feel real while I'm reading about it. I can speculate why it turned out that way, but frankly it doesn't matter, it only matters that it is how it is.

I obviously can't recommend this book, but according to Goodreads a lot of people are liking it, so maybe you will. I have my preferences, and they are unique from everyone else's, but if some of my complaints are the types you have about books too, than I would suggest moving on to another novel. 

Check this book out of Amazon

Blog tour: Heir to the Lamp

 Be Inspired…and Pass the Mouthwash

Michelle Lowery Combs

Whether talking with people about my novel Heir to the Lamp or about writing in general, the question I’m most often asked is, “Where does the inspiration for your stories come from?”  I get it:  I always want to know where my favorite authors get their ideas.  Take JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series or DM Cornish’s Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy, each with worlds so creative and magical, so intricate and complete that they seem real.  Where does the genesis for that kind of creativity come from?

For a lot of writers the answer to that question can be complicated.  For me, however, it isn’t nearly as enigmatic as the fangirl in me can’t help believing my author idols’ would be.   Unlike Stephanie Meyer, I’ve never had a dream that resulted in a fully developed manuscript.  Nor have I ever experiencedthe coalescence of a psychology class, an Evanescence song,and the movie Mean Girls in the way that Veronica Roth has said the Divergent series came to her.  For me, the old adage “write what you know” is how I’ve developed my most successful story ideas.

So what do I know?  When developing the storyline andcharacters of Heir to the Lamp, I turned to my own eclectic family and our everyday experiences.    I had to research genie legends and folklore, the life of Cleopatra and the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte for my novel, but I know from experience how many days it takes for a few careless kids to accidently starve their first and only pet hamster to death.   I know what it feels like to be almost six-feet-tall as a thirteen-year-old girl.   I’ve witnessed the agony and fury of a teenage sister whose little brother has replaced her contact lens solution with mouthwash; I’ve smelled the minty freshness that emanated from her face as she blindly swung at her terrified yet jubilant brother bobbing and weaving just out of reach.

The supernatural plot of a young girl coming to terms with a kind of otherness in the form of a djinn heritage acts as a backdrop to the real story I hope readers will take away fromHeir to the Lamp.  A story I’ve lived.   A story about what life can be like when you’re one of six siblings.  A story about how familial love can endure through chaos, cramped quarters, and even the endless shenanigans of younger brothers that feel likethey could boil your eyeballs in their sockets.

A family secret, a mysterious lamp, a dangerous Order with the mad desire to possess both. Ginn used to think she knew all there was to know about how she became adopted by parents whose #1 priority is to embarrass her with public displays of affection, but that changes when a single wish starts a never-ending parade of weirdness marching through her door the day she turns thirteen. Gifted with a mysterious lamp and the missing pieces from her adoption story, Ginn tries to discover who...or what...she really is. That should be strange enough, but to top it off Ginn’s being hunted by the Order of the Grimoire, a secret society who’ll stop at nothing to harness the power of a real genie. Ginn struggles to stay one step ahead of the Grimms with the help of Rashmere, Guardian of the lamp and the most loyal friend a girl never knew she had. The Grimms are being helped, too--but by whom? As much as she doesn’t want to, Ginn’s beginning to question the motives of her long-time crush Caleb Scott and his connection to her newest, most dangerous enemy

Fore more informations go HERE

Michelle Lowery Combs is an award-winning writer and book blogger living in rural Alabama with her husband, one cat, and too many children to count. She spends her spare time commanding armies of basketball and soccer munchkins for the Parks & Recreation departments of two cities. When not in the presence of throngs of toddlers, tweens and teens, Michelle can be found neglecting her roots and dreaming up the next bestseller. She is a member of the Alabama Writers’ Conclave, Jacksonville State University’s Writers’ Club and her local Aspiring Authors group. You can find her online at MichelleLoweryCombs.com, Facebook, Twitter @miclowery77, Google+, and on her blog Through the Wormhole: Confessions of a Bookworm.

Review: Dark Horizons

Title: Dark Horizons (#2 in The Red Sector Chronicles)

Author: Krystle Jones

Page Count: 348

My Rating: 3.5 TURTLES: A very enjoyable read, I recommend you check it out.

Author’s Website

Synopsis:

When seventeen-year-old vampire hunter Sloane McAllister went into the Red Sector to look for her brother, she never expected to meet vampire commander Aden Knight. She definitely never meant to fall in love with him. And she never thought she’d call the vampires her friends, or that to save them she would defy the one person she swore to always protect: her maniacal twin brother, Orion.

After thwarting her brother’s plan to wipe out all vampires with a super virus, she thinks she may at last catch a break – until Aden grows ill, and she’s thrown into prison for treason. But a jail cell can’t compare to the thought of losing Aden forever. The brilliant vampire doctor Paris De Lange thinks she can manufacture a cure, but she’ll need Orion’s blood to do so. There’s just one problem – Orion has escaped. Now, if Sloane has any hope of saving Aden’s life, she must travel to the surface and bring her brother to justice.

Review:

Dark Horizons picks up right where the last book left off, with Sloane immediately embarking to find the cure for her boyfriend, Aden. This book is chock full of action and fighting, making it a real page-turner. Fans of The Scarlet Dagger will be very excited to get their hands on Dark Horizons. I really liked how the plot and characters took some interesting turns throughout the story, and the cliffhanger ending left me wanting to find out what happened next.

One personal thing about me that prevented me from loving this book is that I am so done with love triangles. Don’t get me wrong, I have my exceptions, but by and large, I’ve gotten really tired of them. It is evident in the first book that there might be a potential love triangle, but it is fully introduced in this one. I know a lot of people love them, but I’m personally much more in favor of finding out how Sloane is going to stop her evil brother from getting away than wait while she answers the age old question of Best Friend from Childhood or Attractive Man She’s Gotten to Know Since Starting Her New Life.

The plot itself though is very gripping. I would recommend this series to early teenagers or older since it is very violent (post Vampire Apocalypse duh). The Red Sector Chronicles read very quickly, and if you’re looking for a new thrilling paranormal series, I’d recommend you give these books a go.


Buy Dark Horizons on Amazon

Free Book Notice: Kamori: Mystery of the Pau'i

Kamori: Mystery of the Pau’i

by P.A. Mundi 

Free giveaway weekend: Sat 29th June and Sun 30th June

Exclusively on Amazon Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CGPQL3W

This is a coming-of-age tale with a mystical twist. It involves the ‘Kamori’—advanced chameleon-people with color-morphing skin. But there is a problem: in kamori society, color morphing is taboo; adults must permanently display “National Colors” like a uniform.

Along comes an orphan named Meyu. Born in the wilderness, he knows no societal norms. He loves to color-morph and he can even make his skin sparkle and glow--just like the caverns he once called home. In civilization Meyu is considered a freak. Nobody realizes that his skin holds the key to long-forgotten powers of the Spirit—powers once harnessed by the legendary civilization of the Pau’i.
The story is set on an outlandish world named B'hu (bee-oo) where most plants can move, squirt, or shoot, and  where most pets have their own littler pets.
Will Meyu fulfill his destiny and rekindle the golden age of the Pau’i? Or will dark forces prevail? Join Meyu as he journeys through his fascinating planet on his quest for truth.
=-=-=-=-=-=
The author invites all readers to obtain a free download during the giveaway weekend and to provide any feedback at info.kamori@gmail.com.
See also:     www.kamori.ca  

Twitter:        @PAMkamori

Off to Chicago!

Hi there everyone!

Tomorrow this time I will be on a plane to Chicago for the ALA convention. If any of you are going to be there as well, please shoot me an email, I'd love to meet you! I hope you all are having a wonderful summer so far.

Read on.

Blog Tour Stop: Reconaissance

Reconaissance: Book 2 of Paradise Reclaimed by Aubrie Dionne

Nova Williams has lost her one shot at Lieutenanthood and at love. Lieutenant Crophaven has promoted her rival, Andromeda, all because her lifemate, Sirius, sacrificed their mission to win back Andromeda’s love.

While sneaking out to prove Andromeda is a fake, Nova finds an alien ship hovering over their colony. Lieutenant Crophaven assigns her to a reconnaissance mission, giving her a second chance to redeem herself. Sirius must fly her and a research team to the vessel to decide if they are a threat. Thrown together with the lifemate that betrayed her, she battles with her own jealousy while her team battles for their lives.

Can she forgive Sirius in order to save her team and warn her colony?

Excerpt:

A drone, as deep and low as the growl of a primordial beast, resonated in my gut and I yanked my hand away. My heart sped like someone had fired a starter gun to a race, and my chest tightened until I couldn’t breathe.

 

That blaring blasphemy wasn’t from my ship.

The sound tapered off, leaving me in silence. I stared at the bones, wondering if I’d imagined it, or if I should hide here in the ruins in case the sound came back.

What am I doing? I’m a team expedition leader, for crying out loud!

I pulled myself back together. Everyone else was attending the ceremony on the ship. The thick hull, designed to protect us from deep space, blocked all sounds from the outside world. I was the only one who would have heard it. The only one who could investigate. I thought about going back for help, but every second I delayed, the source of the sound could disappear. Besides, I didn’t want the credit taken away from me. Not this time.

I scrambled to the window and climbed over the ledge, throwing myself down so fast my ankles exploded in pain. Cursing, I hobbled up the embankment of the excavation site. The sound boomed around me, vibrating the crystals underneath my feet. I fell to my knees and covered my ears. It reminded me of warping metal, growling monsters, and screeching alarms all at the same time.

The sound came from the jungle. I pulled myself up the incline and peered over the edge. A dry, fiery breeze blew my hair back, and I looked above the rustling canopy.

My heart stammered then beat into a frenzy. A massive ring of a ship, twice as large as the New Dawn, hovered over the jungle. Spires jutted from the top and the bottom, like a two-sided pin cushion. Blinking reddish lights adorned the ends. The hull was a dull gray shield of impenetrable metal with no sight panels or markings of any kind.

The buzzing sound made my eardrums throb. I pressed my nose up against the crystal ledge and peered over as my whole body shook. The lowest spire, thick as a nuclear reactor, lengthened from the belly of the ship until the tip hovered a meter from the jungle canopy. A trap door opened, and a beam of white light seared a hole in the foliage. The smell of burnt vines choked my throat, and I cowered against the side of the ledge.

I have to warn the ship.

Buy Links:   Amazon   Barnes & Noble     All Romance eBooks

Book 1: Colonization

Andromeda has spent all seventeen years of her life aboard a deep space transport vessel destined for a paradise planet. Her safe cocoon is about to break open as Paradise 21 looms only one month away, and she must take the aptitude tests to determine her role on the new world and her computer assigned lifemate. As a great-granddaughter of the Commander of the ship, she wants to live up to her family name. But, her forbidden love for her childhood friend, Sirius, distracts her and she fails the tests. The results place her in a menial role in the new colony and pair her with Corvus, “the oaf”.

But when Andromeda steps foot on Paradise 21, her predestined future is the least of her worries. Alien ghosts from a failed colonization warn her of a deadly threat to her colony. And when Sirius’s ship crashes on the far ridge in an attempt to investigate, she journeys to rescue him with Corvus. 

Andromeda now must convince the authorities of the imminent danger to keep her protect her new home. What she didn’t expect was a battle of her own feelings for Sirius and Corvus. 

Can she save the colony and discover her true love?

Buy Links:     Amazon           Barnes & Noble

About the Author:

Aubrie grew up watching the original Star Wars movies over and over until she could recite and reenact every single scene in her backyard. She also loved The Goonies, Star Trek the Next Generation--favorite character was Data by far--and Indiana Jones. But, her all time favorite movie was The Last Unicorn. She still wonders why the unicorn decided to change back to a unicorn in the end.

Aubrie wrote in her junior high yearbook that she wanted to be "a concert flutist" when she grew up. She majored in flute performance at the University of New Hampshire on a full scholarship, then secured two teaching jobs at a University and a local community music school. While playing in orchestras and teaching, stories popped into her head, and she used them to make the music come alive for her flute students. Her students said they were so good, she had to write them down! Maybe they were right, who knows? Two careers seems to keep her busy. For now.

She is represented by Dawn Dowdle and writes sweet and adventurous fantasy, science fiction, and contemporary romance.

Author Links: Twitter        Site       Blog      Goodreads