Book Review (73).

Choker

by Elizabeth Woods

Publication: April 2012

Publisher: Simon And Schuster Australia

Pages: 233

Genre: Mystery

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

Price: $14.99

Sixteen-year-old Cara Lange has always been a loner, even more so since she moved away from her best and only friend, Zoe, a few years ago. Cara mostly spends her time avoiding the popular girls who call her 'choker' after a humiliating incident in the cafeteria, and watching Ethan Gray from a distance, wishing he would finally notice her.


Then one day Cara comes home and finds Zoe waiting for her. Zoe's on the run from problems at home, and Cara agrees to help her hide. With Zoe back, Cara's life changes overnight. Zoe gives her a new look and new confidence, and before she can blink, Cara is flirting with Ethan and getting invited to parties. And best of all, she has her best friend to confide in again.

But just as quickly as Cara's life came together, it starts to unravel. A girl goes missing in her town, and everyone is a suspect ~ including Ethan. Worse still, Zoe starts behaving very strangely, and Cara begins to wonder what exactly her friend does all day when she's at school. You're supposed to be able to trust your best friend no matter what, but what if she turns into a total stranger?

My Thoughts.

This book had been on my wishlist for quite a while before I received it for review and I'm happy to say it was well worth the wait, it was a mix of murder, suspense and intrigue.

Cara and her family moved when she was in fifth grade taking her away from her best friend Zoe, year's later and she has no friends and is picked on nearly every day even though she tries to make herself as invisible as possible, all of that changes one day when in the cafeteria at lunchtime she chokes on some food and after being saved by her crush who happens to be the most popular boy at school she earns the nick-name Choker.

After a particularly bad day at school Cara arrives home and finds Zoe there , she has run away from home and although they haven't seen each other in a very long time it's like they've never been apart and Zoe stays in Cara's room while Cara is at school.

Zoe helps build up her confidence and gives her a makeover as well as listening to Cara whenever she has a hard day at school after being picked on, one night she is awoken by flashing lights next door and finds one of the girls who torments her at school is found dead in her backyard pool and then not long after that another girl who was most responsible for the bullying goes missing and it's also around this time that Zoe starts acting really weird  and Cara tries to spend her time away from her.

As the story goes on Cara starts to develop some self-esteem and becomes friends with her crush Ethan and makes some new friends buy Zoe doesn't like that and becomes jealous and her demeanor becomes erratic and Cara never knows what her temperament is going to be one day to the next.

One thing I could never in a million years  have guessed was the ending of this book it was definately a shocker and a fantastic twist.

All in all a great read that leaves you guessing right until the nail biting end.

I give this 5/5.

A Big Thanks To Caroline @ Simon And Schuster Australia.

Feature And Follow Friday (23).

Q: What is one book that you would be nervous to see a movie adaption of because you think the movie could never live up to the book?

Well one in production I'm wary about is the Mortal Instruments movie it's one of my favourite series and with the amount of troubles they've been having with casting, directors and deciding when to film the movie it has me worried.

And another series would be the Black Dagger Brotherhood I think they'd find it hard to cast any actors as the brothers.

Waiting On Wednesday.

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking The Spine where you can spotlight an upcoming release that you're eagerly anticipating.

This week I'm waiting on....

Splintered

                                  by A.G. Howard

1st January 2013 Amulet Books

For sixteen years, Alyssa Gardner has lived with the stigma of being descended from Alice Liddell -- the real life inspiration for Lewis Carroll's famed novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. But cruel jokes about dormice and tea parties can’t compare to the fact that Alyssa hears the whispers of bugs and flowers ... the same quirk which sent her mother to a mental institution years before. 

When her mother takes a turn for the worse and the whispers grow too strong for Alyssa to bear, she seeks the origins of their family curse. A set of heirlooms and a moth tied to an unusual website lead Alyssa and her gorgeous best friend / secret crush, Jeb, down the rabbit hole into the real Wonderland, a place more twisted and eerie than Lewis Carroll ever let on. 

There, creepy counterparts of the original fairytale crew reveal the purpose for Alyssa’s journey, and unless she fixes the things her great-great-great grandmother Alice put wrong, Wonderland will have her head.

When We Wake

by Karen Healey 

March 2013 Little Brown's Children

My name is Tegan Oglietti, and on the last day of my first lifetime, I was so, so happy. 

Sixteen-year-old Tegan is just like every other girl living in 2027 - she's happiest when playing the guitar, she's falling in love for the first time, and she's joining her friends to protest the wrongs of the world: environmental collapse, social discrimination, and political injustice. 

But on what should have been the best day of Tegan's life, she dies - and wakes up a hundred years in the future, locked in a government facility with no idea what happened. 

Tegan is the first government guinea pig to be cryonically frozen and successfully revived, which makes her an instant celebrity - even though all she wants to do is try to rebuild some semblance of a normal life. But the future isn't all she hoped it would be, and when appalling secrets come to light, Tegan must make a choice: Does she keep her head down and survive, or fight for a better future? 

Award-winning author Karen Healey has created a haunting, cautionary tale of an inspiring protagonist living in a not-so-distant future that could easily be our own.

Greta and the Goblin King (Mylena Chronicles #1)

by Chloe Jacobs

13th November 2012 Entangled Publishing

While trying to save her brother four years ago, Greta was thrown into the witch’s fire herself, falling through a portal to a dangerous world where humans are the enemy, and every ogre, goblin, and ghoul has a dark side that comes out with the full moon. 

To survive, seventeen-year-old Greta has hidden her humanity and taken the job of bounty hunter—and she’s good at what she does. So good, she’s caught the attention of Mylena’s young Goblin King, the darkly enticing Isaac, who invades her dreams and undermines her determination to escape. 

But Greta’s not the only one looking to get out of Mylena. The full moon is mere days away, and an ancient evil knows she’s the key to opening the portal. If Greta fails, she and the lost boys of Mylena will die. If she succeeds, no world will be safe from what follows her back.

Fall Back (The Timewalker Chronicles #1)

by Emlyn Chand

3rd November 2013 

Terra Wade was made for a glamorous fairytale life; she’s popular, attractive, and knows how to flirt. Yet, none of these skills come in handy when she falls into the Grand Canyon and wakes up in another era. Adopted by a Hopi tribe, Terra learns she has the rare ability to walk through time. She was perfectly happy just being pretty. Now she’ll stop at nothing to find her way home. 

The tribe introduces her to Tornado Bill, a cantankerous cowboy who shares her strange power. He is the only one who can help but doesn’t seem to feel like it. Desperate, Terra enlists the help of Wick, a Hopi boy who’s even more stubborn than he is handsome. With such difficult companions, will Terra ever manage to find a way back to her own time? 

From the author of the acclaimed Farsighted series comes Fall Back, the first volume of The Timewalker Chronicles.

The Suburban Strange

by Nathan Kotecki

2nd October 2012 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Shy Celia Balaustine is befriended by a mysterious group of outliers called The Rosary at her new school, Suburban High. The Rosary exposes Celia to new experiences and ideas that help her break out of her shell. Soon though, Celia discovers something is not quite right at Suburban. Girls at the school begin having near fatal accidents on the eve of their sixteenth birthdays. Who is causing the accidents and why? Celia's own sixteenth birthday is fast approaching and she is inexorably drawn into an underground conflict between good and evil—the Kind and the Unkind—that is bubbling beneath Suburban High.

Book Review (72).

Lover Reborn (Black Dagger Brotherhood #10)

by J.R. Ward

Publication: 27th March 2012

Publisher: Nal

Pages: 572

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Age Appropriate: Adult

#1 New York Times bestselling author J. R. Ward’s “different, creative, dark, violent, and flat-out amazing”* Black Dagger Brotherhood continues as a vampire warrior crosses the line between life and death…into a world of dark dreams and darker desires. 

Ever since the death of his shellan, Tohrment is a heartbroken shadow of the vampire leader he once was. Brought back to the Brotherhood by a self-serving fallen angel, he fights again with ruthless vengeance- and is unprepared for a new tragedy. Seeing his beloved in dreams—trapped in a cold, desolate netherworld—he turns to the angel to save his former mate, only to despair at the path he himself must take to set her free. As war with the lessers rages, and a new clan of vampires vies for the Blind King’s throne, Tohr struggles between an unforgettable past, and a future that he doesn’t know he can live with… but can’t seem to turn away from.

My Thoughts.

I always knew going into this book that I'd end up a big blubbering mess, and I definitely wasn't wrong, and it wasn't just once I lost count after a while it was just a tragic, heartbreaking story that made it's way through all that for a happily ever after that we'd all been hoping for ever since Tohr lost his Shellan (vampire mate) and his unborn child.

I knew it would take a long while for Tohr to get through his grief and except that Wellsie wasn't coming back and that's what made this book such an emotional read as we journey with him through his period of realisation and acceptance.

As with most BDB books there's always sub-plots and in this story it involved John Matthew and Xhex who   seperated because John couldn't handle the fact that Xhex was out there fighting and he didn't want end up going through what Tohr was going through from losing Wellsie and also the Band Of Bastards led by Xcor who was intent on taking over the throne from Wrath and becoming King.

Lassiter comes to Tohr and tells him that Wellsie and his child are in the in-between neither heaven or hell they're ust stuck and they need to leave before they fade away into nothing, the problem though is Tohr and his inability to let Wellsie and their child go and if he doesn't they'll never pass through into the Fade (heaven), so to help her pass on he needs to let her go and move on with his life.

I love that he was paired up with No'One they both deserve happiness and the fact they knew each other in the past and he helped deliver Xhex who then mated Tohr's adopted son John Matthew was perfect.

I liked that this book took place over a year which it makes it more believable than a normal book where they would fall in love and straight away be together.

The relationship that developed between Xhex and No'One was a favourite part of the story for me and that they developed the bond between mother and daughter made it more special.

There was also a storyline with Quinn and Layla that may have repercussions in the next BDB book, all of the brothers appear in the book  with the decision to admit a new member to the Brotherhood if law allows it.

I'm also interested to find out more about the Band Of Brothers and the attraction between a couple of them and a certain Chosen who helped save them by giving them her blood.

This book was up there with Zsadist's book as the most emotional of them all and one of my favourite's, I lost count of the number of times I cried there was so many sad moments with Tohr and even John Matthew working through their grief.

I'm so looking forward to the next book which is going to be Quinn and Blay's and I'm so happy that they'll eventually get their happily ever after.

I give this 5/5.

 

In My Mailbox (22).

In My Mailbox Is A Weekly Meme Hosted By Kristi The Story Siren.

Review.

Fury (Mercy #4) - Rebecca Lim (Harper Collins Australia)

Brought.

Lover Reborn (Black Dagger Brotherhood #10)  - J.R Ward

Forgiven (The Demon Trappers #3) - Jana Oliver

Spellcaster (Spellbound #2) - Cara Lynn Schultz

Slide (Slide #1) - Jill Hathaway

The Springsweet (The Vespertine #2) - Saundra Mitchell

Corsets & Clockwork Anthology

Hunt The Moon (Cassandra Palmer #5) - Karen Chance

The Mammoth Book Of Paranormal Romance 2 Anthology

Australian Vs. U.S.A. Book Covers

Revived

by Cat Patrick

Australian.

American.

I definitely prefer the American cover!

Book Review (71).

Blood Red Road (Dust Lands #1)

by Moira Young

Publication: 7th June 2011

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Pages: 492

Genre: Dystopian

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

In a lawless future land, where life is cheap and survival is hard, Saba has been brought up in isolated Silverlake. She never sees the dangers of the destructive society outside. When her twin brother is snatched by mysterious black-robed riders, she sets outon an epic quest to rescue him. The story's searing pace, its spare style, the excitement of its fabulously damaged world, its unforgettably vivid characters, its violent action and glorious lovestory make this a truly sensational YA debut novel.

My Thoughts.

I absolutely loved this book, when I first started reading it I didn't think that I would because of the writing and the misspelling but once you understand that it's because of the way the characters talk you sort of get into it a bit more and after the first chapter or so I barely noticed it.

Saba and her twin brother Lugh live with their father and younger sister Emmi in the middle of dusty wastelands with no one around for miles, they are suffering through a drought and their father who hasn't been the same since his wife died giving birth to Emmi spends his days performing rain dances which don't come into fruition.

One day five men on horseback arrive looking for Lugh and kidnap him, in the struggle to save him their father is killed and Saba sets off with her sister in tow to find and save Lugh.

Along the way they come across a couple who drug them and hold them hostage so that they can use Saba as an entrant into cage fighting where they get to keep the money that she wins.

While Saba is entered in the cage fighting she is kept in a cell and let out for exercise in a yard each day, next door is the boys yard and it's there that she meets Jack a male cage fighter and straight away I knew I was going to love him his flirting was just funny and the chemistry was great.

With help from a fellow fighter a Free Hawk a band of female warriors they escape and Jack joins up with them and after Saba is reunited with her sister they set off again to find Lugh with the aid of Jack and some of the Free Hawks.

My highlight of this book is the banter between Saba and Jack, I loved them together and was highly anticipating the time that they both realised they were in love with each other and admitted it to one another, I was really intrigued with Jack I have a feeling that there's more to his character than meets the eye and I can't wait to find out what that is.

I'm interested to know where the next book will take us and I hope we get to know Lugh more and hopefully there'll be a whole lot more of Saba and Jack  who have become one of my favourite couples.

This is a fantastic debut novel the dialogue is different and sets it apart from all the other dystopian books around and it's one I didn't want to put down so fascinated was I by the world brought to life in this story.

Loved it, loved it, loved it now bring on the next book.

I give this 5/5.

A Big Thanks To Jodie @ Scholastic Australia.

Cover Reveal.

Alice in Zombieland (White Rabbit Chronicles #1)

by Gena Showalter

A new series featuring a teenage girl who loses her family in a crash, only to wake up to a world of zombies and zombie slaying, as well as a bad boy who could save or destroy her.

Expected publication: September 25th 2012 by Harlequin Teen

To say I'm excited for this book is an understatement, I love Gena's books and have had this on my wishlist since it first appeared on Goodreads.

I will definitely be buying this.

Feature And Follow Friday (22).

Q: Have you ever bought a book BECAUSE of a bad review?

I've never brought a book because of a bad review, I have however brought books that have bad review's because I really wanted to read them anyway.

Waiting On Wednesday.

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking The Spine where you can spotlight an upcoming release that you're eagerly anticipating.

This week I'm waiting on....

Iced: A Dani O'Malley Novel (Fever World #1)

                                  by Karen Marie Moning

30th October 2012 Delacorte Press

"I'm currently working on a trilogy that features Dani, Christian MacKeltar, Ryodan, and the mysterious 'Dancer,' set primarily in Fever-Dublin. Each installment in the trilogy is a stand-alone mystery, however there are larger plot arcs unfolding in the background... 

..For those of you who have been worrying—the trilogy is not YA. If I had to categorize it, I would say it straddles the line between YA and adult uneasily. ...Many of the questions I left unanswered in the FEVER series are addressed in this new series. 

Exciting news: I’ve agreed to write two more books after that. Once the new trilogy is complete, I’m returning to the core story begun in the FEVER series, and will resume writing about Mac, Barrons, V’lane, Cruce, the Unseelie king, the concubine, the Song of Making. 

All in all, there are five more books coming about the Fever World!" 
Karen Marie Moning

Ironskin (Ironskin #1)

                                  by Tina Connolly 

2nd October 2012 Tor Books

Jane Eliot wears an iron mask. 

It’s the only way to contain the fey curse that scars her cheek. The Great War is five years gone, but its scattered victims remain—the ironskin. 

Now Jane returns to the war-torn country to help a fey-cursed child. Helping the unruly Dorie suppress her curse is hard enough—she certainly didn’t expect to fall for the girl’s father, the enigmatic artist Mr. Rochart. But her blossoming crush is stifled by her own scars, and by his parade of women. Ugly women, who enter his closed studio—and come out as beautiful as the fey. 

Jane knows he cannot love her, just as she knows that she must wear iron for the rest of her life. But what if neither of these things are true? Step by step Jane must unlock the secrets of her new life—and discover just how far she will go to become whole again.

Poison Princess (The Arcana Chronicles #1)

by Kresley Cole 

2nd October 2012 Simon And Schuster Books

Poison Princess centers on 16-year-old Evangeline "Evie" Greene, a privileged teenager from Louisiana. When an apocalyptic event decimates her hometown, killing everyone she loves, Evie realizes the hallucinations she'd been having for the past year were actually visions of the future — and they're still happening. Fighting for her life and desperate for answers, she must turn to her wrong-side-of-the-bayou classmate: Jack Deveaux. As Jack and Evie race to find the source of her visions, they meet others who have gotten the same call. An ancient prophecy is being played out, and Evie is not the only one with special powers. A group of teens have been chosen to re-enact the ultimate battle between good and evil. But it's not always clear who is on which side…

Dark Star

by Bethany Frenette

23rd October 2012 Hyperion

Audrey Whitticomb has nothing to fear. Her mother is the superhero Morning Star, the most deadly crime-fighter in the Twin Cities, so it’s hard for Audrey not to feel safe. That is, until she’s lured into the sweet night air by something human and not human—something with talons and teeth, and a wide, scarlet smile. 

Now Audrey knows the truth: her mom doesn’t fight crime at night. She fights Harrowers—livid, merciless beings who were trapped Beneath eons ago. Yet some have managed to escape. And they want Audrey dead, just because of who she is: one of the Kin. 

To survive, Audrey will need to sharpen the powers she has always had. When she gets close to someone, dark corners of the person’s memories become her own, and she sometimes even glimpses the future. If Audrey could only get close to Patrick Tigue, a powerful Harrower masquerading as human, she could use her Knowing to discover the Harrowers’ next move. But Leon, her mother’s bossy, infuriatingly attractive sidekick, has other ideas. Lately, he won’t let Audrey out of his sight. 

When an unthinkable betrayal puts Minneapolis in terrible danger, Audrey discovers a wild, untamed power within herself. It may be the key to saving her herself, her family, and her city. Or it may be the force that destroys everything—and everyone—she loves.

Book Review (70).

Fever (The Chemical Garden #2)

by Lauren DeStefano

Publication: 21st February 2012

Publisher: Simon And Schuster 

Pages: 341

Genre: Dystopian

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

**Warning Contain's Spoilers From The Previous Book**

Rhine and Gabriel have escaped the mansion, but danger is never far behind. 

Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ringmistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago - surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness. 

The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous - and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion...by any means necessary. 

In the sequel to Lauren DeStefano’s harrowing Wither, Rhine must decide if freedom is worth the price - now that she has more to lose than ever.

My Thoughts.

I loved the first book in this series Wither and was excited to start this book as soon as I'd finished the first one, unfortunately although I really liked this book I felt it was lacking something that I can't quite put my finger on.

The book takes up straight after the ending from the first book and Rhine and Gabriel are on the run, and straight away run into some bad luck in the shape of a carnival (a cover for a brothel type establishment) and it's owner , Gabriel spends his whole time there drugged while Rhine is enlisted by the owner to entice the gentlemen in.

It's not long before the awful owner figures out that she can make a lot of money by selling Rhine off to the Gatherers, but Vaughn finds her there and after a close call she and Gabriel escape again.

They eventually make it back to Rhine's home to find it destroyed and Rowan nowhere to be found, Gabriel has become addicted to the drugs he was given at the carnival and they have taken charge of a mute and deformed girl Maddie a daughter of one of the prostitutes from the carnival who while trying to escape got captured.

Rhine starts to get really sick and starts displaying the same symptoms that afflicted Jenna in the first book and nothing seems to help until the arrival at an orphanage they're staying at of Vaughn, who threatens to burn the place down with everybody in it if she doesn't go with him.

So let's just say Rhine gets a personal tour of Vaughn's dungeon below the mansion and ends up as a guinea pig for his experiments, she does reunite with Cecily, Deidre and Linden.

And the ending was really good but having to wait till next year to find out what happen's next will not be fun.

This book didn't have the suspense of the last book while in the first one you were wondering how she was ever going to find a way to escape from the mansion there was also the interaction from the other characters whom barely appeared in this book and I didn't find the parts at the carnival or the orphanage all that exciting and I didn't really like Gabriel in this book at all.

But I will definitely be buying the next book and I hope I like it better than this one.

I give this 4/5.

Teaser Tuesdays.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. 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!

Lover Reborn (Black Dagger Brotherhood #10)

by J.R. Ward

And now here he was, empty just like the dress, because what had filled both him and this gown was gone.

The tears that came out of his eyes were silent, the kind that seeped out and soaked the pillow, traveling over the bridge of his nose and falling free to drop one after another like rain from the lip of a roof.