Feature And Follow Friday (8).

Q: Keeping with the Spirit of Giving this season, what book do you think EVERYONE should read and if you could, you would buy it for all of your family and friends?

O.k well I would probably say any of the books in my three all-time favourite series which are:

Twilight Saga - Stephenie Meyer

Harry Potter - J.K Rowling

The Mortal Instruments - Cassandra Clare

I could buy them for my family, but sadly I'm the only one that really reads.

Book Review (29).

Meridian (Fenestra #1)

by Amber Kizer 
Publication: 11th August 2009
Publisher: Delacorte Books For Young Readers
Pages: 320
Genre: Fantasy/Paranormal
Age Appropriate: Young Adult

Half-human, half-angel, Meridian Sozu has a dark responsibility.
Sixteen-year-old Meridian has been surrounded by death ever since she can remember. As a child, insects, mice, and salamanders would burrow into her bedclothes and die. At her elementary school, she was blamed for a classmate’s tragic accident. And on her sixteenth birthday, a car crashes in front of her family home—and Meridian’s body explodes in pain.

Before she can fully recover, Meridian is told that she’s a danger to her family and hustled off to her great-aunt’s house in Revelation, Colorado. It’s there that she learns that she is a Fenestra—the half-angel, half-human link between the living and the dead. But Meridian and her sworn protector and love, Tens, face great danger from the Aternocti, a band of dark forces who capture vulnerable souls on the brink of death and cause chaos.

My Thoughts.

From as far back as she can remember Meridian has attracted dead animals to her, waking up each morning to find dead rats, spiders and insects her backyard is like a cemetery.

On her sixteenth birthday as she's walking home there's a car accident and she experiences excruciating pain, her Dad bundles her into a car, drives her to meet up with a taxi which then takes her to the bus depot where she has a ticket to go to Revelation, Colarado to go stay with her Great Aunt Meridian (her namesake) while her family goes into hiding.
There she finds out she's a Fenestra (half -human, half-angel) and her job is to send people's souls on into heaven, her Aunt who is also a Fenestra helps to teach her as well as her protector Tens.
But there are evil forces trying to stop her called Aternocti and they want her on their side to lure souls into hell.
Of course there's a little bit of romance and I can't wait to see Meridian's and Ten's relationship develop in future books.
I did not want to put this book down it was so good and I even had a little cry, I'm now off to start the second book.
I give this 5/5

Australian Vs. U.S.A Book Covers.

Embrace (The Violet Eden Chapters #1)

by Jessica Shirvington 

Australian.

American.

I personally prefer the American cover because it gives you a better idea of what the book's about.

Book Review (28).

Last Breath (The Morganville Vampires #11)

by Rachel Caine

Publication: 1st November 2011

Publisher: NAL Hardcover

Pages: 335

Genre: Paranormal

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

With her boss preoccupied researching the Founder Houses in Morganville, student Claire Danvers is left to her own devices when she learns that three vampires have vanished without a trace. She soon discovers that the last person seen with one of the missing vampires is someone new to town—a mysterious individual named Magnus. After an uneasy encounter with Morganville’s latest resident, Claire is certain Magnus isn’t merely human. But is he a vampire—or something else entirely?

My Thoughts.

**Warning May contain spoilers if you haven't read books 1-10 In The Series**

I have to start by saying I love this series and I'm never disappointed.

So we're in Morganville and Eve and Michael are planning their wedding, a lot of human's and vampires are opposed to the engagement.

Vampires are going missing around town and Claire keeps seeing a mysterious man who's there one minute and gone the next and no one else seems to see him, at the same time Amelie has been given a letter with just one word 'run' and just that one word upsets her enough that she orders all vampires out of Morganville.

Without spoiling anyting this book had a huge twist you would never see coming and the reactions were enough to leave me in tears.

One thing I missed in this book was the interaction between Claire and Myrnin , Claire refuses to speak to Myrnin for most of the book  after he was ordered to do something by Amelie that upsets Claire.

In this book not only do we have Claire's pov but also Shane, Eve, Michael and Amelie and it's great to see how Amelie thinks.

While this book doesn't exactly end on a cliffhanger what happens makes me want the next book in my hands right now!

This book is definately my favourite in the series.

I give this 5/5

 

Waiting On Wednesday (8).

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

The Mammoth Book of Ghost Romance(Mammoth Romances)

by Trisha Telep (Editor)

7th August 2012 Running Press

A wonderful collection of stories of supernatural love by Sharon Shinn, Dru Pagliasotti, Caridad Pineiro, Jennifer Estep, Gwyn Cready, Carolyn Crane, Jeannie Holmes, Anna Campbell, Julia London, Christie Ridgway, Holly Lisle and Liz Maverick. In happy-ever-after endings, ghosts come to life so that lovers can be united in the flesh

Lucid

by Ron Bass, Adrienne Stoltz

19th July 2012 Razorbill

What if you could dream your way into a different life? What if you could choose to live that life forever?

Sloane and Maggie have never met. Sloane is a straight-A student with a big and loving family. Maggie lives a glamorously independent life as an up-and-coming actress in New York. The two girls couldn't be more different - except for one thing. They share a secret that they can't tell a soul. At night, they dream that they're each other.

The deeper they're pulled into the promise of their own lives, the more their worlds begin to blur dangerously together. Before long, Sloane and Maggie can no longer tell which life is real and which is just a dream. They realize that eventually they will have to choose one life to wake up to, or risk spiraling into insanity. But that means giving up one world, one love, and one self, forever.

This is a dazzling debut that will still readers' hearts

Fade Out

by Nova Ren Suma
5th June 2012 Simon Pulse

If this were a movie, you'd open to the first page of this book and be transported to a whole other world. Everything would be in black and white, except maybe for the girl in pink polka-dot tights, and this really great music would start to swell in the background. All of a sudden, you wouldn't be able to help it--you'd be a part of the story, you'd be totally sucked in. You'd be in this place, filled with big lies, mysterious secrets, and a tween girl turned sleuth....

Zoom in on thirteen-year-old Dani Callanzano. It's the summer before eighth grade, and Dani is stuck in her nothing-ever-happens town with only her favorite noir mysteries at the Little Art movie theater to keep her company.

But one day, a real-life mystery begins to unravel--at the Little Art! And it all has something to do with a girl in polka-dot tights.... Armed with a vivid imagination, a flair for the dramatic, and her knowledge of all things Rita Hayworth, Dani sets out to solve the mystery, and she learns more about herself than she ever thought she could

My Life in Black and White

By Natasha Friend

28th June 2012 Viking Juvenile

Lexi has always been beautiful, but her beauty is taken from her when she goes face-first through a car windshield. Now Lexi has to dig deep to figure out how to define herself. Help on her journey of self-discovery comes from unexpected sources: Ruth, Lexi’s sister, “the smart one” to Lexi’s “the pretty one,” with whom Lexi has never been close; and Theo, a classmate who is still recovering from his sister’s recent death from anorexia

Australian Vs. U.S.A Book Covers.

Stolen Nights (Vampire Queen #2)

by Rebecca Maizel 

Australian.

American.

Book Review (27).

Dearly Departed (Gone With the Respiration #1)

by Lia Habel 

Publication: 29th September 2011

Publisher: Doubleday/Random House Australia

Pages: 451

Genre: Steampunk

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

Love can never die.

Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

In Dearly, Departed, romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love

My Thoughts.

The year is 2195 a lot of countries have been wiped out, there's been a second American Civil War and unbeknownst to most people the world is inhabited by Zombies.

The world has gone back to the Victorian era, same clothes, same prejudices where those who have money are in higher standing than those who don't.

It has been a year since Nora Dearly lost her Father  to a disease and in that time she's been at an all girl's school with her best friend Pamela 'Pamma'.

While at home Zombies break in and while Nora is trying to escape is kidnapped by another group of Zombies (who are the good guys) and take her to their base, the captain of the Zombies Bram is instantly attrcted to Nora although it takes her a while to warm up to him as well as his Zombie friends.

Meanwhile back at her home in Elysian Fields the disease has struck turning a lot of Nora's villagers into Zombies and Pamma is stuck in the middle.

There are alternating chapters in this book told from five people's pov's which I think definately adds to the story so you know what's happening to everybody.

I loved Nora and her sarcasm and the fact she loved watching war documentaries, not what a well bred Victorian girl should be interested in at all, and Bram well what can I say for a dead guy he seems pretty hot and the way he comes to care for Nora is so sweet.

This book is my first ever Zombie book and it definately won't be my last, I never thought the subject could keep me entertained let alone for over 400+ pages, that just goes to show the brilliance of Lia Habel's writing, bringing to life something that that's made me fall in in love with characters that are usually used in horror plots.

I highly reccomend this book.

I give this 4/5

A huge thanks to Dorothy @ Random House Australia.