Book Review: The Fifteenth Minute (ARC) by Sarina Bowen

October 30, 2015October 27, 2015Leave a comment

Genre:

New Adult, find Contemporary, website Romance

Pages:

294

Part of a Series?:

5th in the Ivy Years Series

Release Date:

October 13th, 2015

You Can Find the Book At:

Book Depository

GoodReads Summary:

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. There’s something 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.

My Review:

Dear Sarina Bowen,

I have always had a soft spot for hockey. I have. I used to live next to this big empty lot when I was a little kid…that eventually became the Arrowhead Pond, now called the Honda Center…which houses the Anaheim Ducks. I love hockey. I had a friend in grade school who had season tickets. I got to meet some seriously awesome players back then. I love hockey. I haven’t been as attached to it over the past couple years because my first love is baseball. This is true.

Because of your writing, your stories, and your characters…I am now massively in love with hockey. Your stories freakin ROCK. Every single story is so different and the characters so unique, but you make them all lovable and you make it so we want to keep reading about them, book after book after book. Seriously. This fictional world you’ve created at Harkness College feels so incredibly real to me and I love every moment of it.

Which brings me to DJ and Lianne. I ADORE every moment of Lianne. I love that she’s this super famous actress in this super cheesy film series, and that she just wants to go to school and be normal but even without the whole famous-actress-super-rich-thing, she’s just SO awkward as hell and it just makes the whole book to me. You’re trying to figure out how to handle that she’s this famous person, but you’re too busy laughing at how insanely normal and silly and awkward and awesome she is. Seriously. I’m jealous of Bella for being her sort of roommate because I want Lianne to be my best friend. I love that behind this facade of supposed perfection is this girl who is literally just trying to figure out who she is, and where she stands. She’s insecure with boys and she is embarrassed at Bella and Rafe’s sexy times next door. She’s so refreshingly normal and I fall in love with her at every page.

And then there’s DJ. I adore DJ and I think its because we’re able to keep this connection to the hockey theme of the whole series but in a totally different new way. I love that he used to play but that being in the booth, playing music, playing with the reactions of the crowd, and using the music to interact with the players. I love music, a lot, but I have no connection to it other than loving it and listening to it. DJ makes it seem like so much, and connects it with something I do love: sports. I never thought of the music other than something they play through the speakers but it can have an effect on the crowd and the players and I LOVE it.

Plus, okay, besides all of that…you just write amazing books. I laugh a lot, and the sexy times are ALWAYS so good, and it makes me want to become a better NA sports romance writer, and you are a huge influence.

Keep writing these. I’ll keep reading. For sure.

Also, can I, like, HAVE Rafe? I know he belongs to Bella and all that, but I’d like him to kind of belong to me too? Is that okay? Is that a real thing…

Let me know.

Love, Sara

Rating:

5 out of 5 stars

I Got A New Tattoo!

October 28, 2015October 28, 20151 Comment

Because apparently 14 was just not enough for me, buy information pills I just got #15 just a few days ago! This is actually a tattoo I’ve wanted for quite some time but I hadn’t had the means to make it happen and then I finally did, and honestly, it really came at the perfect time.

I am absolutely in love with the Rusk University series by Cora Carmack. I think it combines two things I just absolutely love: romance and football. Sports, in general. I’ve been wanting to write my own sports romance for quite a few years but didn’t know how to make it happen and I didn’t even know if someone would read it. I just finished Benched, a baseball romance back in September, early September, and I’m so happy with it. And its largely in part because of Cora and her series.

But its more than that too. Not only is she a huge inspiration and just a great friend, but she gave me three little words that I literally tell myself every single day. I got a wristband at RT back in May that says “no easy days” on it, and I wear it every single day. Well, I wore it every single day until a few days ago. Since May, and RT, my car has broken down, a guy had genuine feelings for decided I was not worth the risk, I lost my dream job, I continued to get so many rejections, got officially diagnosed with anxiety and I just felt miserable as hell. No direction, no happy ending in sight. I felt just…bad all the time.

And every single day, I told myself “no easy days, no easy days, no easy days”. Life isn’t easy, and not a day goes by that I don’t struggle with something, even if its just a tiny little something. But I work hard, and I believe in myself, most of the time, and I try so hard. And these words “No Easy Days” get me through. When I had a bad day, when I remembered that I only had a few bucks in my bank account and no job prospects and all of that…I would look at the bracelet and just keep going. That damn bracelet got to the point where the words were rubbed off and then Cora sent me a new one!

She’s awesome!

Now…things are so much better.

I have a job, and a job I like, on top of that. I am getting my book published. Things are shaping up. Things are getting much much better. I’m feeling MUCH happier and I know that not every single day is going to be good, but there are NO easy days and that’s okay.

And I finally got the tattoo, on my arm, in a place where I can see it every day. My best friend, Alex, has the tattoo as well, but her’s is on her bicep, in Cora’s writing. I immediately thought that was SUCH a great idea but then I thought…well I don’t want to copy Alex. We each have our own reasons for getting these words on us, and I want to make it my own. So I decided to get it tattooed on myself, in my own writing.

Means a lot to me to have it like that.

Plus the amazing John Troeller at Classic Tattoo in Fullerton did an AMAZING job once again, so I’m quite happy with it.

Apparently I make awkward, weird faces when I get tattoos. This was the most normal of all the faces that Alex captured on my camera. But I like this because of how silly I look…and because it shows that it literally didn’t hurt in the slightest.

So red and puffy but so pretty! I’m so proud of it, and seriously stoked that I have decent handwriting or it would have come out SO weird…

Me and my girl with our cute matching tattoos. I’m so glad we both got these. Like I said, different reasons but sort of centered on the same idea. These words mean a lot to us, and Cora means a lot to us and those books are just awesome.

So yeah, I just wanted to share my newest tattoo with you guys, because you guys love it and I love sharing my love of books with you AND on my skin.

Don’t forget, you can always share yours with me as well!

Book Review: Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy

October 27, 2015October 25, 20151 Comment

Genre:

Young Adult, sildenafil Contemporary

Pages:

364 pages

Part of a Series?:

Standalone Novel

Release Date:

September 15th, 2015

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads Summary:

Self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson (dubbed “Dumplin’” by her former beauty queen mom) has always been at home in her own skin. Her thoughts on having the ultimate bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. With her all-American beauty best friend, Ellen, by her side, things have always worked…until Will takes a job at Harpy’s, the local fast-food joint. There she meets Private School Bo, a hot former jock. Will isn’t surprised to find herself attracted to Bo. But she is surprised when he seems to like her back.

Instead of finding new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself. So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the Miss Clover City beauty pageant—along with several other unlikely candidates—to show the world that she deserves to be up there as much as any twiggy girl does. Along the way, she’ll shock the hell out of Clover City—and maybe herself most of all.

My Review:

I was so incredibly impressed with the first book that I ever read by Julie Murphy. I do own her first book but honestly just haven’t had the chance to dive into it yet. Have you seen my TBR pile? Its massive!

Anyway, I had heard some really good things about Dumplin’ and I knew I eventually wanted to get my hands on it and was SERIOUSLY stoked when I got it in one of my OwlCrate boxes (You rock, OwlCrate). I decided that I needed to get on that right away and I did. And I read it fast.

Here’s the thing: I could sit here and tell you that its a great book about body positivity and that we should have more books like this and that it preaches self confidence and all this stuff. I could go on and on about that but I’m not going to.

Because even though that’s all true, very very true, there’s just so much to this book. I absolutely adore Willowdean. I love that she just sort of accepts the person that she is, and I love that. Willowdean is Willowdean. She’s big but that’s just the way it is. But she has insecurities and she has a hard time sometimes believing in herself or her own attractiveness but I never sit here and feel like its specifically because she’s fat. She has this because she’s a teenager and she’s going through the same shit that we all go through when we’re teenagers. THAT is what I love about it. Sure, we have body positivity, sure we have diversity with a character that isn’t perfect and pretty and skinny. But Julie doesn’t make it a big thing, not to me anyway.

Willowdean is a great, familiar, awesome character that just happens to be bigger and THAT is what makes it so good. She creates this character that is SO different from maybe what we’re used to in YA but we all connect with her because she feels so real and familiar. She has a shitty job and there’s a cute boy that can’t make up his mind about her and she’s like WTF (I’m 27 and I still deal with this crap…) and that’s what makes it so good. Creating diversity by making a diverse character who has these differences but connects with everyone…GENIUS.

I have no idea if I’m making any sense.

Basically, I totally loved this book. I adore Willowdean and kind of wish she was my best friend. She’s a great character and THAT is what makes this story so damn good. The story itself is great but Willowdean carries it and its definitely one of my favorites of the year.

Rating:

4.5 out of 5 Stars

Book Review: Flamecaster (ARC) by Cinda Williams Chima

October 26, 2015April 6, 20201 Comment

Adrian sul’Han, known as Ash, is a trained healer with a powerful gift of magic—and a thirst for revenge. Ash is forced into hiding after a series of murders throws the queendom into chaos. Now Ash is closer than he’s ever been to killing the man responsible, the cruel king of Arden. As a healer, can Ash use his powers not to save a life but to take it?

This review is based on an advanced reader’s copy of the novel obtained through Edelweiss. This is in no way had an effect on the integrity of my review. Please note that published novel will differ from this ARC.

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Book Review: Stand-Off by Andrew Smith

October 25, 2015August 23, 2019Leave a comment

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.

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THE AWAKENED Cover and Release Date Revealed!

October 24, 2015October 24, 20155 Comments

I am SO insanely excited to share this with you today!

I’ve been counting down the days to revealing the official cover for The Awakened, tadalafil and to finally tell you when you can get your hands on this beauty!

As a reminder, my debut science fiction novel, The Awakened, is being published by the amazing BenjaminOfTomes through his brand new micro publishing company, OfTomes!

I’m insanely excited about this. I’m about to finally share the cover, and I’ll also share the synopsis. I’m going to add the links to my official author pages: website, instagram, twitter, etc, so please follow me on there. Then also click the link on GoodReads to add it to your TBR list!

All right now…

You ready for this…

I am SO SO SO ready for this…

Here it is!

The Official Cover Reveal!

This is the official front cover! This is what you will see when you buy it in ebook format!

This is what the entire paperback is going to look like!

ISN’T IT GORGEOUS!

I can’t handle how much I seriously LOVE it. This is MY book and it looks totally amazing. Sigh. Its beautiful. Mad props out to Kim at KimG Designs for making this absolutely beautiful and more than I could have ever hoped for!

The Official Release Date

December 1st, 2015!

And for those of you in Southern California, stay tuned for an official launch party!!

The Official Synopsis

Zoey Valentine is concerned with two things: surviving the multitude of self-defense classes her dad makes her take and avoiding Ash Matthews.

That is, until the Z virus hits, wiping out a third of the population in a matter of weeks. If that weren’t frightening enough, the bodies of the victims disappear and suddenly reappear, awakened from their dead state. They’re faster, smarter, and they work together to get the one thing they crave, human flesh.

The United States is in a panic and then the government decides the unthinkable: to bomb every major city overrun with the awakened.

Now Zoey is on the run, with her dad and Ash, desperate to find a place of safety amongst the ruined remains of the country.

Add it on GoodReads Now!