Thursday 24 July 2014

(ARC) Book Review (365): Sinner (The Wolves Of Mercy Falls #3.5) - Maggie Stiefvater


Sinner (The Wolves of Mercy Falls #3.5)

Publication: 1st July 2014
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Pages: 368
Genre: Paranormal
Age Appropriate: Young Adult
Buy It: Amazon Barnes & Noble The Book Depository
A standalone companion book to the internationally bestselling Shiver Trilogy. 

Sinner follows Cole St. Clair, a pivotal character from the #1 New York Times bestselling Shiver Trilogy. Everybody thinks they know Cole's story. Stardom. Addiction. Downfall. Disappearance. But only a few people know Cole's darkest secret -- his ability to shift into a wolf. One of these people is Isabel. At one point, they may have even loved each other. But that feels like a lifetime ago. Now Cole is back. Back in the spotlight. Back in the danger zone. Back in Isabel's life. Can this sinner be saved?
My Thoughts.
Sinner is a companion novel to The Wolves Of Mercy Falls series, continuing on and finishing up Cole St Clair and Isabel Culpeper's story arc's, this is the book that fans of this series have been waiting for.

This was definitely one of my most anticipated books of the year for me, I loved Cole's character and I was eager to jump in and discover whether Cole and Isabel would finally put themselves and us readers out of our misery and get together.

Unfortunately while I did find this book enjoyable in parts, I also found it to be quite dull and there wasn't enough of a storyline to keep me wanting to continuously pick this book up, I loved Cole's witty repartee but there was what seemed to be a monotonous storyline which consisted of: Cole and Isabel meeting up, having a fight, one or the other storming off, record a song, do something for the reality show that Cole is appearing on, change into a wolf and repeat over and over.

Maybe my expectations were set too high, I really don't know, but I was left disappointed regardless, I'm a huge fan of Maggie's but this book didn't have the spark that the original series had.

I do suggest that fans of this series read Sinner though, to finish of this series and get some closure for these two characters who are fan favorites.

I give this 3/5 stars


I am Maggie Stiefvater. I write books. Some are about dead Welsh kings. Some are about werewolf nookie. Some are about neither.
I have been a wedding musician, a technical editor, a portrait artist, and, for several fraught weeks, a waitress. I play several musical instruments (most infamously, the bagpipes), I still make art, and I recently acquired and unacquired a race car.
I live in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia with my husband, my two children, some cows, three dogs who fart recreationally, a criminally insane cat, an interminable number of miniature silky fainting goats, and one 1973 Camaro named Loki.
I like things that go.
Amazon

Sunday 20 July 2014

(ARC) Book Review (364): Unstoppable (Country Roads #3) - Shannon Richard


Unstoppable (Country Roads #3)

Publication: 29th July 2014
Publisher: Forever
Pages: 400
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Age Appropriate: Adult
Some things you don't dare let go . . .Melanie O'Bryan knows life is too short to be afraid of taking chances. And former Air Force sergeant Bennett Hart is certainly worth taking a chance on. He's agreed to help her students with a school project, but she's hoping the handsome handyman will offer her a whole lot more. Yet despite his heated glances and teasing touches, Mel senses there's something holding him back . . . 
Bennett Hart is grateful to be alive and back home in Mirabelle, Florida. Peaceful and uncomplicated-that's all he's looking for. Until a spunky, sexy-as-hell teacher turns his life upside down. After one smoldering kiss, Bennett feels like he's falling without a parachute. But with memories of his past threatening to resurface, he'll have to decide whether to keep playing it safe, or take the biggest risk of all. 
My Thoughts.
Unstoppable by Shannon Richard is an extremely enjoyable contemporary romance, number three in the Country Roads series, it can be read as a stand alone but to understand the history of the different characters I do recommend starting at the first book Undone.

Full of romance, steamy love scenes and unforgettable characters these books only get better as the series goes along.

Mel O'Bryan is a maths teacher who has enlisted the help of ex-Air Force sergeant Bennett Hart, who has become well known around town for his carpentry skills, for a project building new bookshelves for the schools library incorporating maths into the equation (pardon the pun) to teach kids the importance of maths in everyday life.
Both have a crush on each other, but neither is willing to take the first step, Bennett who is still coming to grips with injuries and the loss of soldiers/friends that were lost in a helicopter crash while on duty in a foreign country which subsequently put an end to his career, is adamant that he won't fall in love with anyone to save himself the trouble of losing anybody else in his life, but as much as he fights it he's drawn to Mel and they soon start a  relationship, but you know in these kind of books that it's never smooth sailing, and they will have hurdles to cross and issues to deal with before they both get their happily ever afters.

The chemistry between Mel and Bennett is hot, they were so well suited to each other and I was intrigued and absorbed with their whole relationship, egging them on the whole way through.

Shannon has a way of making every new book and story in this series fresh and exciting, leaving readers with the need to plow through these books as fast as possible, no matter how many times you tell yourself just one more chapter, before you know it you're finished and you're left wondering where the time went.

I can't wait for the next book, I'm eager and anxious to see what awaits these characters who are quickly becoming near and dear to my heart.

Highly recommended.

I give this 5/5 stars.



All About Shannon

Shannon Richard grew up in the Panhandle of Florida as the baby sister of two overly protective but loving brothers. She was raised by a more than somewhat eccentric mother, a self-proclaimed vocabularist who showed her how to get lost in a book, and a father who passed on his love for coffee and really loud music. She graduated from Florida State University with a bachelor’s in English literature and still lives in Tallahassee, where she battles everyday life with writing, reading, and a rant every once in a while. Okay, so the rants might happen on a regular basis. She’s still waiting for her Southern, scruffy Mr. Darcy, and in the meantime writes love stories to indulge her overactive imagination. Oh, and she’s a pretty big fan of the whimsy.

Website Facebook +Twitter Goodreads

Saturday 19 July 2014

Book Review (363): The Bone Season (The Bone Season #1) - Samantha Shannon


The Bone Season (The Bone Season #1)

Buy It: Amazon
The Bone Season is the first book in a new epic series, a mix of dystopian and fantasy, this is a thrilling, heart-pounding and nail-biting story that will leave you breathless and extremely desperate to get your hands on a copy of the next book The Mime Order.

Set in the year 2059, the world is now ruled by Scion, people like Paige who have some kind of psychic ability are deemed "unnaturals" and are hunted down and/or tortured and killed.

Paige belongs to one of the groups that are part of the Seven Seals the criminal underworld consisting of unnaturals/voyants with varied abilities that search out information by using their skills.

Paige has a very rare power, she is able to break in to people's minds through their dreamscapes, her ability makes her a dreamwalker a very rare clairovoyant that accidentally has her killing two guards, she is subsequently caught and sent to the long ago abandoned city of Oxford, run by the Rephaim whom are otherworldly creatures, each  voyant is picked by a keeper to serve as their slaves, when Paige is chosen by Warden to be his slave and he her Master everyone is shocked as he has never had a human slave before, but his plans are to train her and help her to develop her ability, but she soon discovers that Warden is nothing like any of the other Masters, and if she has any hope of escaping she needs to learn to trust him, he may just be her best bet in achieving that.

The small bit of romance shared between these two at the end of the book has me anxiously awaiting what can only be one of my most anticipated books for the rest of this year, the world, imagery and characters combine to make this an extremely unforgettable novel.

I'm eager to see where the rest of this series goes, at the planned length of seven books there is sure to hopefully be some more Warden appearances,  and even perhaps some more romance, and of course let's not forget Samantha's amazing storytelling.

Highly recommended.

I give this 5/5 stars.

I'm Samantha Shannon: dreamer, migraineur and author ofThe Bone Season, the first in a projected series of seven fantasy novels. I was born in Hammersmith, London in 1991. From 2010 – 2013 I studied English Language and Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford, specialising in Principles of Film Criticism and Emily Dickinson. I'm now working on the second book in the Bone Season series,The Mime Order (out 21 October 2014).

I'm a fan of old music, gramophones, silent film, good coffee, and real books. I have four siblings, four parents, and a male tortoise named Lily-Beth, some of whom live with me in west London. The Bone Season is my first published novel. 

My blog, A Book from the Beginning, tracks my journey to publication and my experiences as a debut novelist. Comments and discussion are always welcome. 


Wednesday 16 July 2014

(ARC) Book Review (362):The Promise (Thunder Point #5) - Robyn Carr


The Promise (Thunder Point #5)

by 
The Promise is the fifth book in the Thunder Point series, a small town contemporary romance series which gets better with every release.

While every book features a different couple, we also get multiple perspectives of past couples and residents of Thunder Point featured throughout each and every book, and while most people will read that and think ugh...I hate more than one point of view in a book, for these books it works, it carries the story along and you are left in no doubt as to which characters perspective you're reading at any given time.

Thunder Point's Dr Scott is a widower who has recently moved to town with his two young children to open a new clinic, he is finally ready to move on and find romance again, enter Peyton a nurse who has just ended a disastrous relationship with a doctor and his horrible kids, and is in no way looking for a relationship in any way, shape or form.

But sparks fly when these two are together and it's not long before Peyton realises that not all men are like her ex, and by giving Scott a chance she may just find the kind of love that she's always dreamed of.

The Promise is full of romance, laughter and small town charm that will leave a warm spot in your heart and a smile on your face, long after you've turned the last page.

Robyn has created such a heartwarming, well written series with fleshed out characters that will have you caring for each and every one and will leave you anticipating every new release.

A quick and easy read that I got through in just one sitting, this is one book that you won't want to put down.

I give this 4/5 stars.


Now that Robyn Carr has earned the #1 slot on the New York Times list many times, the creator of the wildly popular Virgin River and Thunder Point series laughs when someone refers to her as an overnight success.
“The truth is, I was first published in 1978, and it took me thirty years to make it to The New York Times bestseller List,” she pointed out, referring to 2007’s A Virgin River Christmas.
But once Robyn became that popular, she stayed that popular. WhenBring Me Home for Christmas, the 16th Virgin River novel, was released in November 2011, it debuted in the #1 slot not just on the New York Times roster, but also on the Barnes & Noble and Publishers Weekly lists as well. Her last seven books, including her three 2013 Thunder Point novels, have all earned the coveted #1 New York Timesslot the first week on sale. Her newest milestone: The Hero, her September 2013 Thunder Point novel, debuted in the #1 position onseven national bestseller lists: USA TodayPublishers WeeklyNew York Times Mass-market Fiction, New York Times eBook Fiction, New York Times Combined Print/eBook Fiction, the Wall Street Journal, and Bookscan.
After thirty-plus years of hard work, life is very, very good for the Las Vegas author who began writing when her two children were babies.
Those who try to explain Robyn’s “sudden” success might say it was because she was on the leading edge of a trend toward small-town romances. The truth is, Robyn’s Virgin River and Thunder Point series, like her earlier Grace Valley books, are a blend of romance and women’s fiction—books that not only entertain but also address sensitive issues, such as domestic violence, health risks and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anything that can compromise a woman’s happiness because she’s female. And there’s no denying that Robyn has a way with words. Her voice is unique and takes her readers into the hearts and minds of the brave men and women who have served in the military, into the families left behind, and into those who confront challenges head-in in their search for love and fulfillment.
Surprisingly, Robyn didn’t always know she wanted to be a writer. She had planned to become a nurse. She married her high school sweetheart four weeks before he left for Air Force Officer’s Training School at the peak of the Vietnam War. Because she found herself following Jim from base to base, Robyn never had a chance to pursue nursing. Her husband worked long hours and often traveled. To pass the time Robyn read. When doctors instructed her to stay down and keep her feet up during a complicated pregnancy, her neighbor began bringing her ten paperbacks a week.
“I was reading more than one a day. Nothing short of labor pains could snap me out of it,” Robyn said.
Since the books she’d been devouring were by Anya Seton, Kathleen Woodiweiss and Rosemary Hawley Jarmen, Robyn says it only made sense that her first efforts to write were in the historical romance genre as well.
There was no training program available at the time for writing romance. At the first writers’ conference Robyn attended—back in 1976—a novelist who wrote in a different genre critiqued Robyn’s third manuscript and suggested she go home and find something to do for which she had talent.
That same manuscript was published in hardcover two years later asChelynne, a novel which Robyn has reissued as an e-book. Her second manuscript was eventually published as well. But Robyn says her first was simply a tool for learning and will remain buried and “never seen by human eyes.”
Robyn has always written about strong women, no matter the period in which they live. For the first fifteen years of her career she wrote romance, the early books of which were all historical, but later included contemporaries. Needing a change, she branched out and wrote a thriller, which she said she’ll never do again because, for her, it was too creepy. She also tried her hand at non-fiction and what she smilingly describes as “several brilliant but as yet unsold screenplays,” in addition to articles and short stories.
“I jumped all over the place, not really aware that I was working on reinventing myself and redesigning my craft,” she says. “I began to develop my own brand of women’s fiction, a style that most closely resembles my take on life. I want to laugh through a book, but I don’t want a book that’s a big laugh. As a reader I want to have a genuinely good time, but I don’t want the book to be a joke. I want real women’s issues, real humor and teeth in the story.”
She says that reading is important because people need a safe place to deal with the emotions they’re stuck with, and a book is a safe place to do that. She believes there’s great value in her novels dealing with real issues in a realistic manner.
Robyn’s settings are so richly drawn they function like characters. Virgin River—a fictional town in the rugged, remote Humboldt County of northern California—is a location that Robyn describes as a brave and adventurous spot.
“It’s not a cute and easy place to live,” Robyn explained. “It calls on my characters’ deepest sense of adventure to live there.”
Asked if she’d enjoy living in Virgin River, Robyn’s quick to say that even if it were a real spot, she’d never move there.
“I have an overwhelming need to live in a place where I can get my eyebrows waxed,” she explains.
After writing twenty Virgin River stories, Robyn is now taking her readers into another fictional community, a picturesque coastal town on the Oregon coast she calls Thunder Point. Like her Virgin River novels, the Thunder Point books will make readers laugh, sigh, and fall in love: with a small town filled with people they’ll never forget. In addition to 2013’s The WandererThe Newcomer and The Hero, Thunder Point novels on Robyn’s schedule are three 2014 titles, The Chance (March), The Promise (July), and The Homecoming (September).
Robyn and her husband enjoy traveling, often taking research trips together. Their son and daughter are grown. Robyn says that, in addition to reading her novels and making snide remarks about how she’s used family scenarios to her advantage, they have made her a happy grandmother.


Top Ten Tuesday - 10 Favorite Tv Shows

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a way to share what you're loving in list form. The topic changes every week, so there is always something new to discover!

This week's theme is:  Favorite Movies or TV Shows.  

Besides The Top Show Which Is My All-Time Favorite Show Ever, The Rest Are In No Particular Order.
















Wednesday 9 July 2014

Book Review (361): Summoned (Redemption's Heir #1) - Anne M. Pillsworth


Summoned (Redemption's Heir #1)

Publication: 24th June 2014
Publisher: Tor Teen
Pages: 320
Genre: Fantasy
Age Appropriate: Young Adult
When the Elder Gods extend an invitation, be wary of the strings attached

While browsing in a rare book store in Arkham, Sean finds an occult book with an ad seeking an apprentice sorcerer, from a newspaper dated March 21, 1895. Even more intriguing, the ad specifically requests applicants reply by email.

Sean’s always been interested in magic, particularly the Lovecraftian dark mythology. Against his best friend Edna's ("call-me-Eddy-or-else") advice, he decides to answer the ad, figuring it’s a clever hoax, but hoping that it won’t be. The advertiser, Reverend Redemption Orne, claims to be a master of the occult born more than 300 years ago. To prove his legitimacy, Orne gives Sean instructions to summon a harmless but useful familiar—but Sean’s ceremony takes a dark turn, and he instead accidentally beckons a bloodthirsty servant to the Cthulhu Mythos god Nyarlathotep. The ritual is preemptively broken, and now Sean must find and bind the servitor, before it grows too strong to contain. But strange things are already happening in the town of Arkham....
My Thoughts.
Summoned is the first book in an all new young adult series Redemption's Heir by Anne M. Pillsworth, set in the fantasy genre, with a hint of mythology thrown in as well.

We are introduced to teenager Sean who with his best-friend Eddy are browsing in an occult book shop when Sean comes across an extremely old book which when opened is found to contain a newspaper clipping from 1895, what's strange about that you may ask, well there's a circled ad for somebody searching for an apprentice sorcerer, applicants are asked to email to request an interview, thinking that it's a very well thought out joke, although Eddy is wary they email only to discover that Reverend Orne seriously believes that sorcerer's and witches are real, and even claims to be a sorcerer himself born 300 years ago!

To determine whether Sean has any inkling of magic he sets him a task of performing a summoning spell, against his better judgement and ignoring Eddy's warnings he goes ahead with it, and that's when everything goes catastrophically wrong.

Accidentally summoning a servitor who is a servant to the Cthulhu Mythos god Nyarlathotep, who's main source of sustenance are animals and if given the chance humans, Sean is terrified and unintentionally let's the servitor get away before he gets a chance to bind the creature to him.

Sean must find a way with the help of his family and friends to find a spell to counteract the summoning spell to send the servitor back where it came from before it's too late and Sean is driven crazy by the constant melding of their minds.

While this was an enjoyable read I felt more excited by the concept rather than the actual story, I do plan to carry on with the series though as I'm curious to see how this series turns out.

I would have liked to see a section somewhere in the book with pronounciations of the names, as a lot of them were hard to figure out and it would have made reading it a little more easier.

I give this 3/5 stars.



I was born in Troy, New York, but I currently live just outside Providence, Rhode Island, at the head of beautiful Narragansett Bay. New England has long been my spiritual home, and the region informs much of my fiction. One day I hope to find Lovecraft's portals to his mythical towns of witch-haunted Arkham and Kingsport, shadowed Innsmouth and accursed Dunwich. Until then, I'll just have to write about them..

I am a member of SFWA and HWA and a rabid Austenite. Don't those three always go together?

Apart from writing, I like gardening, swimming, king cobras, jumping spiders, and cats. No cobras or cats at the moment, but the jumping spiders are always with us. In spite of maintaining a mental age of between twelve and sixteen, I have just married my partner of more than thirty years.  Thanks to the RI Legislature for finally living up to Roger Williams' philosophy of crabbing at people he disagreed with but never denying the primacy of the personal conscience.


Website 

Stop by and chat at TWITTER: @AnneMPillsworth

Monday 7 July 2014

Official Dead In The City Cocktail Contest.

Official Dead in the City Cocktail Contest

To celebrate the recent release of Sara Humphreys’ latest Dead in the City title,Vampire Trouble, Sourcebooks is holding a contest to create the official Dead in the City series cocktail!

Before Monday, July 28th we’re asking readers to submit their unique cocktail recipe to Casablanca@sourcebooks.com for a chance to have their creation named the official Dead in the City cocktail and have it featured in Sara’s next Dead in the City title, Vampires Never Cry Wolf (March 2015). Sara will announce the winner in a video where she makes the drink!

Additionally, everyone who sends us their recipe will also be entered in a random drawing to win a Dead in the City themed prize pack including martini glasses, drink supplies, and other sweet treats!

Be sure to follow Sara Humphreys on FacebookTwitter, and her Website for more details on her latest release, Vampire Trouble, including exclusives and MUCH MORE of her fabulous paranormal romances!