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.

In My Mailbox (21).

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

Review.

Muse (Mercy #3) - Rebecca Lim (Harper Collins Australia)

Balthazar - Claudia Gray (Harper Collins Australia)

Brought.

A Temptation Of Angels - Michelle Zink

Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin #1) - Robin LaFevers

The Kane Chronicles Survival Guide - Rick Riordan

Wanted: Undead Or Alive (Love At Stake #12) - Kerrelyn Sparks

Goddess Interrupted (Goddess Test #2) - Aimee Carter

Ashes Of Angels - Michele Hauf

Some Girls Bite (Chicagoland Vampires #1) - Chloe Neill

Friday Night Bites (Chicagoland Vampires #2) - Chloe Neill

Twice Bitten (Chicagoland Vampires #3) - Chloe Neill

Hard Bitten (Chicagoland Vampires #4) - Chloe Neill

Drink Deep (Chicagoland Vampires #5) - Chloe Neill

Awaken (Awaken #1) - Katie Kacvinsky

Luminous - Dawn Metcalf

Blood Magic (The Blood Journals #1) - Tessa Gratton

Above - Leah Bobet

Possession (Possession #1) - Elana Johnson

Book Review (69).

Wither (The Chemical Garden #1)

by Lauren DeStefano

Publication: 22nd March 2011

Publisher: Simon And Schuster Books

Pages: 358

Genre: Dystopian

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children. When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

My Thoughts.

What first drew me to this book was the cover it's gorgeous and I congratulate whoever came up with it, it's beautiful and after reading the book I understand the bird in the cage which is on the front cover.

I was a bit weary at first of reading this book, polygamous marriages don't really do it for me and the fact that Rhine was forced into it didn't exactly want to make me rush out a procure a copy straight away, so I did buy it and it sat on my bookshelf for a very long time before I decided to give it a go after reading quite a lot of positive reviews, and you know what? I absolutely loved it!

Rhine and her twin brother Rohan live in a world where females die at the age of twenty and males at twenty-five after the cure for cancer was discovered and then messed up the life span expectancy of the generations born after them, so that is why polygamous marriages are happening (even the President has nine wives), Rhine is taken by a group of Gatherer's who's job it is to find young girls to be sold to the highest bidder (those girls not chosen either get sold into prostitution or killed), Rhine gets taken and is sold with two other girls to Linden Ashby a rich man who wants to replace his one and only dying wife with them.

When they arrive they are locked in their rooms, Rhine finds her door unlocked one day and finds her way to Linden's dying wife Rose's  bedroom and she notices how alike they look and they become friends until she ultimately dies.

Linden marries Rhine and the two other girls Jenna and Cecily who is only too eager to consummate the marriage the only problem with this? Linden is twenty-one and Cecily only thirteen I had a lot of trouble with that especially when she ends up pregnant soon after that, Rhine manages in the year she's there to never consummate the marriage which I also find unbelievable as her being there to procreate was the reason of being taken in the first place.

Rhine takes a shine to one of the servants Gabriel who's job it is to bring Rhine her meals and they soon both fall for each other and she tells him her plans of escape and how she wants him to go with her.

Of course every story has to have an evil person in it and that role belongs to Linden's father Vaughn a doctor who has a lab down in the basement where he likes to experiment and dissect dead people including Rose, of course all of this is unknown to Linden who is under control of his father and does whatever he says.

It's about Rhine's desperate struggle to escape and reunite with her brother that's the main part of the storyline while outwitting the cunning Vaughn who seems to know her every move.

This is one of my favourite books so far this year, I can't say enough good things about it, so I'm now off to see what the sequel will bring hopefully a happier storyline.

I give this 5/5.

Feature And Follow Friday (21).

Q: Do you read one book at a time or do you switch back and forth between two or more?

I definitely read only one book at a time because otherwise I confuse myself and I'd rather pay all my attention to one book at a time and I find I enjoy it more.