In My Mailbox (14).

Review.

(Arc) The Catastrophic History Of You And Me  - Jess Rothenberg (Penguin Australia)

Jessica Rules The Dark Side (Jessica #2) - Beth Fantaskey (Penguin Australia)

Everneath (Everneath #1) - Brodi Ashton (Simon And Schuster Australia)

Hallowed (Unearthly #2) - Cynthia Hand (Harper Collins Australia)

Pre-Ordered.

Bloodrose (Nightshade #3) - Andrea Cremer

The Asylum (The Vampire Diaries: Stefan's Diaries  #5) - L.J Smith

Hidden (Otherworld Stories #10.4 Novella) - Kelley Armstrong

Brought.

Cinder (Lunar Chronicles #1) - Marissa Meyer 

Melody Burning - Whitley Strieber

Blood Bound (Unbound #1) - Rachel Vincent

Book Review (50).

Jessica Rules the Dark Side (Jessica #2)

by Beth Fantaskey

Publication: 25th January 2012

Publisher: Penguin Australia

Pages: 309

Genre: Paranormal

Age Appropriate: Young Adult 

**Warning May Contain Spoilers From The Previous Book**

It’s one thing to find out you’re a vampire princess. It’s a whole other thing to actually rule. Newly married Jessica Packwood is having a hard enough time feeling regal with her husband, Lucius, at her side. But when evidence in the murder of a powerful elder points to Lucius, sending him into solitary confinement, Jessica is suddenly on her own. Determined to clear her husband’s name, Jessica launches into a full-scale investigation, but hallucinations and nightmares of betrayal keep getting in her way. Jessica knows that with no blood to drink, Lucius’s time is running out. Can she figure out who the real killer is—and whom she can trust—before it’s too late?

My Thoughts.

Having loved the first book in the series I was pretty excited to read this and I definately loved it.

Jessica and Lucius are now married but Jessica is struggling with royal life, she can't speak or understand Romanian, she can't stand up for herself and feels intimidated by the Elders.

As well as having her Uncle Dorin around Jess has befriended a cousin Ylenia who helps her with her new life as a princess, she contacts her friend Mindy from America and asks her to come and visit and so Mindy who is flunking all her college classes agrees as long as Lucius' cousin Raniero who she got together with at Jess and Lucius' wedding isn't there.

Lucius has an altercation with his Uncle Claudiu an Elder during a meeting  and later that night Claudiu is found murdered, the next day Jessica suggests that everybody shows their stakes to see if any of the Elders have Claudiu's blood on it and it is found on Lucius' stake, he's taken into custody and it's up to Jess to find the real killer.

I loved the alternating chapters of Jess, Mindy, Lucius And Raniero the latter two who's chapters are correspondance by email and Raniero comes home to help out and we also find out a lot about his background and his short romance with Mindy.

And Jess finally comes into her own as a princess having to take over royal duties when Lucius is put into solitary confinement and it's up to her with help from Mindy and Raniero to find the traitor in their midst.

I only hope that there will be another book in this series.

I give this 4/5.

A Big Thanks To Penguin Australia. 

Book Review (49).

Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side(Jessica #1)

by Beth Fantaskey

Publication: 1st February 2009

Publisher: Harcourt

Pages: 351

Genre: Paranormal

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

The undead can really screw up your senior year ...

Marrying a vampire definitely doesn’t fit into Jessica Packwood’s senior year “get-a-life” plan. But then a bizarre (and incredibly hot) new exchange student named Lucius Vladescu shows up, claiming that Jessica is a Romanian vampire princess by birth—and he’s her long-lost fiancé. Armed with newfound confidence and a copy of Growing Up Undead: A Teen Vampire’s Guide to Dating, Health, and Emotions, Jessica makes a dramatic transition from average American teenager to glam European vampire princess. But when a devious cheerleader sets her sights on Lucius, Jess finds herself fighting to win back her wayward prince, stop a global vampire war—and save Lucius’s soul from eternal destruction.

My Thoughts.

I've been wanting to read this book for quite a while now and since I was sent the second book in the series to review I was quite excited to start it, and I was not disappointed.

Jessica is your normal everyday teenager or so she believes, one morning while waiting for the bus to school she notices a guy standing across the road staring at her, feeling a bit weirded out she's very grateful when the bus arrives, but in English class later that day there's a new foreign exchange student in class Lucius, none other than the strange boy from that morning.

It's while her mum is driving her home after school that she sees Lucius by the side of the road and Jessica points him out to her mum after telling her the story, then unbelievably her mum gets out of the car and invites him to dinner.

It's while eating dinner that Jessica is told that her real name is Antanasia and she's a vampire princess, not only that but she's told that Lucien (who is a vampire prince) and her were promised to each other at birth and they are to be married when Jessica is eighteen.

Of course Jessica thinks that they are all crazy and there's no such thing as vampire's let alone her being one, it takes quite a while for her to accept it as truth and by then Lucien appears to have moved on to the popular girl at school while Jessica has been dating a boy from school.

It's after Lucien starts dating someone else that she realises she loves Lucien and needs to talk him back into the pact (getting married to stop a war between their feuding families) before it's too late.

I loved how at the start Lucien was so formal but then started to relax and dress and act like all the rest of the American kids he was so fond of making fun of.

We also hear about the way Lucien was brought up by his Uncles (they used to beat him) after both his and Jessica's parents were killed by the same mob many years before.

I also lovd the originality of the vampire story, males are born vampires but the females aren't fully vampires until they are bitten.

Great storyline and characters, now I'm off to start the second book.

I give 4/5.

 

Feature And Follow Friday (14).

Follow Friday Is A Weekly Meme Hosted By Parajunkee And Alison Can Read.

Q: Which book genre do you avoid at all costs and why?

Ok well I definately avoid poetry, I just don't understand it and I'd rather read something that has more of a storyline to it.

Sorry to all the people that like it but each to their own.

Book Review (48).

Spoiled

by Heather Cocks, Jessica Morgan

Publication: February 2012

Publisher: Allen & Unwin Australia

Pages: 372

Genre: Contemporary

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

Arc Review.

16-year-old Molly Dix loves her ordinary life in suburban Indiana, so when her single mother passes away, she is shocked to discover that her biological father is Brick Berlin, world famous movie star and red carpet regular.

Equally intrigued and terrified by her Hollywood lineage, Molly moves to Southern California and plunges head-first into the deep end of Beverly Hills celebrity life. Just as Molly thinks her new life and family couldn't get any stranger, she meets Brooke Berlin, her gorgeous and spoiled half-sister whom welcomes Molly to la-la land with a healthy dose of passive-aggressive "sisterly love."

Set against the backdrop of a sparkling and fashion-filled Los Angeles, this deliciously dysfunctional family soap opera will satisfy every reader looking for their next lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous beach read.

My Thoughts.

Molly has just lost her mum to cancer and it was while her mum was on her death bed the she admitted to Molly that her father is the world famous actor Brick Berlin, so she moves from Indiana to Los Angeles to go and live with her father and half-sister Brooke.

Brick is an absentee father, if he's not shooting a film he's on the phone not realising that all his two daughters want is his attention and some of his time.

When Molly first meets Brooke she's nice as pie and it isn't until Brick isn't around that she lets her true colors show and is vindictive in spreading rumours around school, Molly gets attention from the press which Brooke has always longed for but has never gotten.

Molly is befriended by Brooke's arch-nemesis Shelby who's father owns the Hey! a very popular gossip magazine and Shelby aims to follow in his footsteps and will do anything to get back at Brooke, even use Molly to get what she wants.

Molly also has to deal with her long- distance relationship with her boyfriend Danny and her growing feelings for Teddy a boy at her new school,

For all those people who ever wondered what the world of celebrity would be like, this is the tale of an ordinary girl who didn't know what she was getting herself into.

I give this 4/5.

A Big Thanks To Allen & Unwin.

Australian Vs. U.S.A. Book Covers.

A Million Suns (Across the Universe #2)

by Beth Revis 

Australian.

American.

Book Review (47).

Fracture (Fracture)

by Megan Miranda

Publication: 27th January 2012

Publisher: Bloomsbury Australia

Pages: 261

Genre: Paranormal

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine

—despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she's far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can't control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?

Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she's reassured to find someone who understands the strangeness of her new existence, but Delaney soon discovers that Troy's motives aren't quite what she thought. Is their gift a miracle, a freak of nature-or something much more frightening?

For fans of best-sellers like Before I Fall and If I Stay, this is a fascinating and heart-rending story about love and friendship and the fine line between life and death.

My Thoughts.

What I loved so much about this book was the originality of a subject we don't read a lot about.

Delaney is out with her friend Decker going to meet a bunch of their other friends when while walking across an ice covered lake she falls and cracks the ice and before she knows it she falls in and is trapped under the ice.

We then flash forward to 6 days later and Delaney miraculously awakens from her coma, everybody including her doctor expected her to stay in a vegetative state and never wake up, it's then she's told she was dead for 11 minutes, pulled out of the lake and given cpr by Decker.

It's while she's in hospital that she feels her first pull towards the dying but at the time she doesn;t realise what it is but because of her brain damge she knows when someone is going to die the stronger the pull the closer they are to death.

After getting out of hospital she feels different and herv parents her Mum in particular treat her like she can't be trusted with anything not even to touch the oven and it's while out studying at the library one day with a friend that she meets Troy a boy she finds out who was also in a coma and has the same ability that she now does, the only difference being he speeds up their deaths belieiving it's better to put them out of their misery.

Also through all this Delaney realises that she has feelings for Decker and it's her jealousy of his relationship with Tara a semi friend of their's that drives a wedge between them, Delaney feels she's losing everyone around her, her Mum turns into a shallow shell not eating, compulsively cleaning and being extremely overprotective, her and Decker aren't talking and through time she comes to fear Troy, while also trying to prolong the lives of the people she knows are going to die.

Even though everyone was so happy she survived Delaney feels alienated from everyone and wonders whether it would have been better for everyone if she never woke up.

I loved this story,it flowed really well and I just wanted to keep reading to know what was going to happen next.

I give this 4/5.

A big thanks to Sonia @ Bloomsbury Australia.