Books Pledged to Read in 2015:
150
Am I On Track:
9 books behind schedule. I went slump-y again
Books Read So Far:
103
Total Books For September:
6
Moving Target
Flamecaster (ARC)
Stand Off
Fangirl – ReRead
Dumplin’
The Fifteenth Minute
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Category: Books
Cover Reveal: The Fifteenth Minute by Sarina Bowen
I am SO insanely excited to bring this cover reveal out into the open today. I am a HUGE fan of Sarina’s and this series so I’m excited for the new cover and I’m excited that this book is only weeks away from being released!
Before I reveal the cover though, viagra dosage I’m going to tell you a little bit about Sarina, there a little bit about the Ivy series, sick and then we’ll talk about The Fifteenth Minute. I know not all of you are familiar with this series but I’d love to tell you more so you can fall in love with these hockey guys and gals just like I did!
About Sarina Bowen
Sarina Bowen is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance. She lives in Vermont’s Green Mountains with her family, six chickens and too much ski gear and hockey equipment.
You can Find Her At:
Website / Twitter / Instagram / Tumblr
About the Ivy Years Series
New Adult Sports Romance
In The Year We Fell Down, two injured ice hockey players are thrown together by their own bad luck. Adam Hartley will play again, but Corey Callahan will not. Over video games, tequila and physical therapy sessions, the two must figure out what really matters.
The Year We Hid Away is the tale of two lovers, Bridger and Scarlet, hoping to hide all the ugliness in their lives. But if they can’t learn to trust one another with the bad as well as good, everything they’ve built together will be lost.
The Understatement of the Year. With Bridger off the team, Coach brings in an unfamiliar replacement. But when the new guy reveals the reason for his transfer to Harkness, some of his new teammates aren’t so happy to have him in the locker room. And one is too devastated by past secrets to even look him in the eye.
The Shameless Hour. Things get a little crazy between Bella and her hot upstairs neighbor. And then they get awkward. But when something shocking happens to Bella, it’s Rafe who is there to pick up the pieces.
About Book Five: The Fifteenth Minute
Freshman Lianne Challice is known to millions of fans as Princess Vindi. But sometimes a silver screen sorceress just wants to hang up her wand, tell her manager to shove it, and become a normal college student. Too bad that’s harder than it looks.
She’s never lived a normal life. She hasn’t been to school since kindergarten. And getting close to anyone is just too risky — the last boy she kissed sold the story to a British tabloid.
But she can’t resist trying to get close to Daniel “DJ” Trevi, the hot, broody guy who spins tunes for hockey games in the arena. Something’s haunting his dark eyes, and she needs to know more.
DJ’s genius is for expressing the mood of the crowd with a ten second song snippet. With just a click and a fade, he can spread hope, pathos or elation among six thousand screaming fans.
Too bad his college career is about to experience the same quick fade-out as one of his songs. He can’t get close to Lianne, and he can’t tell her why. And the fact that she seems to like him at all? Incredible.
The Cover Reveal
Preorder on Amazon now and make sure to add it to your GoodReads TBR list!
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Book Review: My Sweetest Escape by Chelsea M Cameron
Genre:
New Adult, order Contemporary, viagra sale Romance
Pages:
363 pages
Part of a Series?:
Second in the My Favorite Mistake series
Release Date:
January 28th, 2014
You Can Find the Book At:
GoodReads Summary:
Jos Archer was the girl with the perfect life; until the night it all came crashing down around her. Now, nine months later, she still hasn’t begun to pick up the pieces. Even transferring to a new college and living under the watchful eye of her older sister, Renee, isn’t enough to help her feel normal again.
And then she meets Dusty Sharp. For reasons Jos can’t begin to fathom, the newly reformed campus bad boy seems determined to draw her out of her shell. And if she’s not careful, his knowing green eyes and wicked smile will make her feel things she’s no longer sure she deserves.
But even as Dusty coaxes Jos to open up about the past, he’s hiding secrets of his own. Secrets about the night her old life fell apart. When the truth is finally revealed, will it bring them closer together;or tear them apart for good?
My Review:
I loved this book even more than I loved the first one. The first was sweet, and all of that, and I loved seeing Taylor and Hunter fall in love but I really love Jos and Dusty…oh especially Dusty. I loved them from page one to the last page.
I like that Jos and Dusty both have secrets, they both have issues that they’re dealing with but they can’t help but be drawn to each other. What makes that even better is that their problems are connected and it takes them a bit to realize that. I don’t know why but I really like that. I like that they push each other away and pull each other back and take care of each other and mess up. They feel so real to me. I wish I genuinely could find a guy like Dusty, because that’s how incredibly real these two characters felt to me.
I also liked the way Chelsea captured loss. Both Jos and Dusty are dealing with a loss and they each have their own way of handling it and I think she does a beautiful job of capturing the emotions and the struggle of it. I really feel what Jos is feeling when she talks about this boy who became her best friend, who literally become her everything, before he was taken away from her.
I’m sitting here, trying to think of what to say about this book because one, its been a little bit since I read and two, I just loved it so much that I can’t really get the words out. Just thinking about it makes me want to read it again because I truly really enjoyed Jos and Dusty’s romance. I truly LOVED Dusty so much.
Rating:
4 out of 5 Stars
Book Review: My Favorite Mistake by Chelsea M Cameron
Genre:
New Adult, buy Contemporary, erectile Romance
Pages:
400 pages
Part of a Series?:
First in the My Favorite Mistake series
Release Date:
August 27th, view 2013
You Can Find the Book At:
GoodReads Summary:
Two secrets. One bet. Who will break first?
Taylor Caldwell can’t decide if she wants to kiss her new college roommate or punch him.
On the one hand, Hunter Zaccadelli is a handsome blue-eyed bundle of charm. On the other, he’s a tattooed, guitar-playing bad boy. Maybe that’s why Taylor’s afraid of falling in love with him, or anyone else. She doesn’t want to get burned, so she needs him gone before it’s too late.
Hunter himself has been burned before, but Taylor’s sexy laugh and refusal to let him get away with anything make her irresistible. Determined not to be kicked out of her life without a fight, Hunter proposes a bet: if she can convince him she either truly loves or hates him, he’ll leave the apartment;and leave her alone.
But when the man behind Taylor’s fear of giving up her heart resurfaces, she has to decide: trust Hunter with her greatest secret, or do everything in her power to win that bet and drive him away forever.
My Review:
I was browsing around some lists, looking for some new NA to read and Chelsea M Cameron’s name kept popping up. My library had copies of My Favorite Mistake, so I figured, why not? I’m really really glad that I did.
Chelsea tells a great story from the beginning of the first page all the way to the end. When Taylor walks in and realizes that for some reason she’ll be rooming with a guy – and a HOT one, that – she is so not pleased. I love her tenacity, I love her temper and I love that the first thing she thinks to do is punch him. That’s a pretty legit reaction in my book. I love that. I love that we kind of know right away the kind of person that she is. Immediately I like her.
I also immediately like Hunter as well. I like that he has a balance with Taylor, and that even though she totally punched him in the face and is annoyed by his very presence, he just kind of lets her be her. There’s something really amazing about that. He knows there is some underlying things going on there and he knows that he wants more, but he just accepts her for the person that she is and kind of lets her come to him.
And I like how they come together. Its sweet and sexy at the same time. Its a slow build up to when they end up working their way to each other. I like that. There’s something to be said about a slow build up and I really truly love that about Taylor and Hunter. I really think they become friends before anything else and then friendship blossoms into something else. I think that’s what really made me love their story and I love that when they do reveal things to each other, it just brings them closer together, as it should. Their story feels real. I think sometimes in romances, things get…er…romanticized and don’t seem very realistic, but this one felt real and it felt familiar. I truly love their romance and how it ends.
Okay, the end is a little…not so realistic. Let’s just say Hunter gets Taylor a gift thats a bit much but I don’t know. To me, it just fit with all of their personalities and it fit the story. All in all, a very good opener for this series :)
Rating:
4 out of 5 Stars
Book Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
Genre:
Young Adult, viagra 40mg Fantasy
Pages:
383 pages
Part of a Series?:
The first of the series
Release Date:
February 10th, click 2015
You Can Find the Book At:
GoodReads Summary:
This is a world divided by blood – red or silver.
The Reds are commoners, viagra order ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.
That is, until she finds herself working in the Silver Palace. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.
Fearful of Mare’s potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to a Silver prince. Despite knowing that one misstep would mean her death, Mare works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, and bring down the Silver regime.
But this is a world of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance – Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart…
My Review:
I had been hearing a lot of good, no, great things about this book for SO long. I knew that it was going to be a good book but for some reason I just kept putting it off. I owned a copy, even met Victoria back in April at YALLWest, and all that, but I just couldn’t make myself sit down and do it. For some reason, I finally sat down and did it and I can’t believe that I have waited this long to read it. Seriously. Because this was basically my face after I finished the book.
First off, Victoria is just a fantastic writer. She has you on Mare’s side right away. She immediately has you hooked into the story. Her world is incredibly beauty and I am so envious of her world building skills. Its flawless, and each page just overflows with intense imagery and believable realism. I’m just blown away by the story itself. The Reds and the Silvers, their story isn’t new, the oppressors and the oppressors…but Victoria has a way of making this story her own, making it unique and stand out. And I think a lot of that comes from the characters. You’re never really sure what side you want to be on, who to trust, who to like. Everyone has secrets, dark ones, and everyone is lying all the time, and its hard to pinpoint each character. You sort of keep reading because you want to get a handle on them but they keep surprising you.
Speaking of surprises, my goodness, Victoria has them at every turn. Every single time you think you have a handle on the story, or you even try to guess what could be around the next corner, she blows something up in your face and literally leaves you going, what on earth just happened…There is a huge climax toward the end of the book, that I obviously want to keep spoiler free, but she just completely yanks the rug out from underneath your feet. I honestly did NOT see that coming at all. And it totally broke my heart. How dare you, Victoria!
So with all that revelation, and the things that happen at the end, and all the action and quick events that lead unto the cliffhanger ending…I’m glad its only a mere handful of months until the release of the next novel because that book ruined my soul.
In all the good ways of course.
Rating:
5 out of 5 Stars
Book Review: Stand-Off by Andrew Smith
Genre:
Young Adult, information pills Contemporary
Pages:
448 pages
Part of a Series?:
Book #2 of Winger series
Release Date:
September 8th, page 2015
You Can Find the Book At:
GoodReads Summary:
It’s his last year at Pine Mountain, and Ryan Dean should be focused on his future, but instead, he’s haunted by his past. His rugby coach expects him to fill the roles once played by his lost friend, Joey, as the rugby team’s stand-off and new captain. And somehow he’s stuck rooming with twelve-year-old freshman Sam Abernathy, a cooking whiz with extreme claustrophobia and a serious crush on Annie Altman—aka Ryan Dean’s girlfriend, for now, anyway.
Equally distressing, Ryan Dean’s doodles and drawings don’t offer the relief they used to. He’s convinced N.A.T.E. (the Next Accidental Terrible Experience) is lurking around every corner—and then he runs into Joey’s younger brother Nico, who makes Ryan Dean feel paranoid that he’s avoiding him. Will Ryan Dean ever regain his sanity?
My Review:
While this review will remain spoiler-free, there is no guarantee that there will not be spoilers for Winger. Please click here for that review.
I was so unbelievably excited to get my hands on this novel. It took so long, to me, for this book to finally hit the shelves. I’m also pretty sure I drove everyone insane by trying to get my hands on an ARC, which inevitably failed. Sigh. So I had to wait like the rest of you for this book to hit shelves.
I went to the book event at the Grove to go see Andrew and get my hands on it. He read aloud from it, and from beginning to end, I laughed. I knew exactly what I was in for once I started this book.
And yet I didn’t know. Let’s be honest, from the beginning, this is definitely an Andrew Smith book. It made me laugh, and it had that sort of randomness, that quirkiness that just makes me so happy when I read his books. Ryan Dean is still random and smart as hell and full of random thoughts. I love his drawings and I love the relationship that he has with Annie. That is absolutely beautiful. I love that it progresses and its not all sunshine and rainbows, but there’s work to it, like any relationship. I love that realism. I love the humor. The “friendship” between Ryan Dean and the Abernathy just had me cracking up the entire book, especially every time Ryan Dean told him to stop talking. It made me laugh so hard.
But what I love about this book is how much we see Ryan Dean change and grow up and deal with the things that happened to him in Winger. With Joey’s death brings a lot of problems for Ryan Dean West, and its interesting to see a character you know so well deal with that. He’s not the same person. He’s lost a bit of his goofiness, and he’s afraid to befriend anyone, because of what happened to his best friend. I think Andrew has a way of capturing it that’s just great. You’re laughing, like always, but you’re also right there with Ryan Dean, experiencing the same things that he is, and the panic attacks felt incredibly real. I experience them periodically and those scenes hit me hard.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to the sequel. I was just glad to have Ryan Dean back. Winger is one of my favorite books period. I definitely expected a lot of laughs, and a lot of randomness and a lot of really cool comics and drawings. All of that was delivered. But the super human story of Ryan Dean and his relationship with Annie and his relationship with his roommate, Sam, and dealing with all the things that are piled up on top of him…that was unexpected but completely beautiful. Because that’s one of the things that makes Andrew the incredible writer that he is; he’s able to be funny and emotional and romantic and a hundred of different emotions at the same time, and bring it all together for a really well-written, character-driven, fantastic story. Another absolute winner, and is now sitting on my “favorites” shelves, right alongside Winger.
Basically…the whole book made me feel like this…
Rating:
5 out of 5 Stars