Top Anticipated February Releases!

February 2, 2016Leave a comment

Young Adult

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Starflight by Melissa Landers

Starflight #1

Life in the outer realm is a lawless, look dirty, approved hard existence, recipe and Solara Brooks is hungry for it. Just out of the orphanage, she needs a fresh start in a place where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. She’s so desperate to reach the realm that she’s willing to indenture herself to Doran Spaulding, the rich and popular quarterback who made her life miserable all through high school, in exchange for passage aboard the spaceliner Zenith.

When a twist of fate lands them instead on the Banshee, a vessel of dubious repute, Doran learns he’s been framed on Earth for conspiracy. As he pursues a set of mysterious coordinates rumored to hold the key to clearing his name, he and Solara must get past their enmity to work together and evade those out for their arrest. Life on the Banshee may be tumultuous, but as Solara and Doran are forced to question everything they once believed about their world—and each other—the ship becomes home, and the eccentric crew family. But what Solara and Doran discover on the mysterious Planet X has the power to not only alter their lives, but the existence of everyone in the universe…

Release Date: February 2nd, 2016

My Thoughts: I’ve already read it. Already love it. Melissa Landers rocks at these science fiction romances, seriously she’s quickly becoming a favorite. This had a nice Firefly feel to it and I loved every minute of it.

Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard

Red Queen #2

Mare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control.

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: she is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors.

But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat.

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

Release Date: February 9th, 2016

My Thoughts: It took me ages to sit down and read Red Queen but it absolutely blew my mind once I did. I literally canNOT wait until this novel comes out.

Calamity by Brandon Sanderson

The Reckoners #3

When Calamity lit up the sky, the Epics were born. David’s fate has been tied to their villainy ever since that historic night. Steelheart killed his father. Firefight stole his heart. And now Regalia has turned his closest ally into a dangerous enemy.

David knew Prof’s secret, and kept it even when Prof struggled to control the effects of his Epic powers. But facing Obliteration in Babilar was too much. Once the Reckoners’ leader, Prof has now embraced his Epic destiny. He’s disappeared into those murky shadows of menace Epics are infamous for the world over, and everyone knows there’s no turning back…

But everyone is wrong. Redemption is possible for Epics—Megan proved it. They’re not lost. Not completely. And David is just about crazy enough to face down the most powerful High Epic of all to get his friend back. Or die trying.

Release Date: February 16th, 2016

My Thoughts: I really really need to read Firefight before I read this one. Obviously. I’ve had Firefight in my TBR pile since the day it came out. I fail.

The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury

When Aladdin discovers Zahra’s jinni lamp, Zahra is thrust back into a world she hasn’t seen in hundreds of years — a world where magic is forbidden and Zahra’s very existence is illegal. She must disguise herself to stay alive, using ancient shape-shifting magic, until her new master has selected his three wishes.

But when the King of the Jinn offers Zahra a chance to be free of her lamp forever, she seizes the opportunity—only to discover she is falling in love with Aladdin. When saving herself means betraying him, Zahra must decide once and for all: is winning her freedom worth losing her heart?

As time unravels and her enemies close in, Zahra finds herself suspended between danger and desire in this dazzling retelling of Aladdin from acclaimed author Jessica Khoury.

Release Date: February 23rd, 2016

My Thoughts: Ever since Jessica announced she was writing this book, I’ve been so so so ready for it. I’m dying. I tried so hard to get my hands on an ARC to no avail. Sad. But I can’t wait to get my hands on it. Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Titans by Victoria Scott

Ever since the Titans first appeared in her Detroit neighborhood, Astrid Sullivan’s world has revolved around the mechanical horses. She and her best friend have spent countless hours watching them and their jockeys practice on the track. It’s not just the thrill of the race. It’s the engineering of the horses and the way they’re programmed to seem so lifelike. The Titans are everything that fascinates Astrid, and nothing she’ll ever touch.

She hates them a little, too. Her dad lost everything betting on the Titans. And the races are a reminder of the gap between the rich jockeys who can afford the expensive machines to ride, and the working class friends and neighbors of Astrid’s who wager on them.

But when Astrid’s offered a chance to enter an early model Titan in this year’s derby, well, she decides to risk it all. Because for a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, it’s more than a chance at fame or money. Betting on herself is the only way she can see to hang on to everyone in the world she cares about.

Release Date: February 23rd, 2016

My Thoughts: I’m about halfway through and absolutely loving it. Victoria Scott is such a great writer and I really want a Titan.

*****

New Adult

*****

The Power by Jennifer L Armentrout

Titan #2

With any great change, there is always strife, and the Covenant University has become the frontline between pure-bloods who want the Breed Order reinstated and the half-bloods who want the right to control their own destinies.
Fate has other plans.

The violence is escalating and war between the races seems inevitable, and it couldn’t come at a worse time. Hyperion may be out of commission, but Josie and Seth know they have only earned a reprieve. Seth must get Josie fully prepared, which means controlling her newfound abilities, and they need to find the other demigods before the Titans do.
But the gods are sensing a greater threat.

Only one thing is more dangerous than a bunch of starved Titans, and that’s an out-of-control Apollyon. The aether in Josie is drawing Seth in deeper, and when lust mixes with love and gives way to power, he knows being close to her is not only dangerous to her, but to everyone around them, but letting her go requires a level of selflessness that just isn’t Seth’s style.

The paths taken in the past are becoming the roads of the future.

Just as chaos breaks out, familiar faces from the past return, complicating the already strained bond between Josie and Seth, and when the danger from the Titans erupts with devastating consequences, the dark allure of power calls to Seth again, but this time Josie might not be able to pull him back.

And when the struggle between power and love becomes the deadliest battleground, there may be no salvation.

Release Date: February 23rd, 2016

My Thoughts: I mean, its Seth. For some reason, that guy just doesn’t get out of your head…

*****

What books are you looking forward to in February?! Did I forget some! Leave them in the comments!

WWW Wednesday

March 26, 2014March 26, 2014Leave a comment

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme, pill hosted by Should Be Reading.

The three W’s are:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll be reading next?

Remember, clicking the book cover will take you to the review. If it doesn’t take you to a review, that means either A, you clicked on a book under the ‘currently reading’ or ‘reading next’ or B, I haven’t written the review yet!

What are you currently reading?

Sasha and Katie keep recommending it like crazy and J.D. Netto sent me a copy so I gotta buckle down and read this!

I just bought this at the bookstore this week so I also need to buckle down and read this.

What did you recently just finish reading?

Its been two weeks since I did one so I’ve read a bit.

Pretty much died when I got this as an e-ARC off Edelweiss. Died of happiness.

Re-read because I remember not quite enjoying the book the first time I read it but then when I re-read it, I still didn’t quite enjoy it. Its just not one of my favorites by him. They just announced a movie, using the same team as TFiOS and Nat Wolff as Quentin, and John Green as a producer but meh. I’d rather read An Abundance of Katherines.

After watching the Divergent movie, I just felt like I wanted more and more Four.

I got this as an ARC on Edelweiss too and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

This book was beautiful. The history and the fantasy of it, the tension. I truly enjoyed it. It’s the Book of the Week tomorrow!

As part of the Fierce Reads Street Team, I was assigned Katie Finn’s novel. I quickly learned that Katie Finn is none other than one of my favorite authors, Morgan Matson, and I zipped through this book. I canNOT wait to share this with you all!

What do you think you’ll be reading next?

I absolutely fell in love with Brandon Sanderson’s Steelheart this year so its time to get on board with his fantasy writing. And its time to get back on actual fantasy. I feel like I haven’t read some in awhile.

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What are you reading this week? Share in the comments!

Exclusive Interview with Fantasy Author, Brandon Sanderson!

November 12, 2013November 11, 2013

A few weeks ago, buy information pills I was contemplating the book releases of the week and I decided, check let’s just get them all. One of them was Brandon Sanderson’s Steelheart. When I got the book, sick I did a little research on Brandon and found out that he is the author of many, many books and I’m embarrassed to admit that it took some time for me to discover this.

I read Steelheart and I absolutely loved it. It blew my mind, because it was such a new concept. Superheroes who use their abilities to gain power, and use it against those who don’t have powers. Its incredible. I’m excited to dive into his other novels, which have more of a fantasy feel than this book does. But we all know that’s a good thing for me.

Brandon is most notable for his Mistborn series, but also has about a dozen other fantasy books just ready for my perusal.

I am honored and SO excited to share this interview with you! Brandon was just around the country for his book tour, promoting Steelheart, and I’m so grateful he took the time out of his busy schedule to sit down and talk about books and writing, and all of that with us.

So enjoy!

Sara: What can you tell us about your new book and what can we expect from it?

Brandon: Steelheart may not be what you expect to see from me because I’ve primarily released epic fantasy so far. As a writer, one of my main goals is to always be trying new things to advance my writing skill and to make sure that you have a varied experience reading my books. If you’ve enjoyed my books, particularly ones likeMistborn, and you pick up this, you’ll find lots of things to love. But you’ll also find some new things. Steelheart is an action-adventure thrill ride. I wrote it to be exciting, fast-paced, and fun. It is my experiment with dabbling more in science fiction than fantasy, and dealing with some of the current tropes in action movies, particularly some of the superhero tropes. In the end, however, it is very much a Brandon Sanderson novel.

The hardest part about doing a sequel is this: yes, it’s new, but it’s also familiar, and there’s a part of me that says, “I don’t want to do that. I want to do something completely different.” However, it’s important to have the discipline to say, “No, you promised your readers that you were going to finish this!” Beyond that, there are certain themes, characters, and stories that you can only explore by doing something that’s more long-form, like a series. As a reader, I prefer to read series, but as a writer sometimes it’s hard to make myself do the familiar instead of something brand-new.

Sara: What book is easier to write: the first book, or the second book? Why?

Brandon: Here’s something about the way I work. New projects excite me. In fact, I’m often dangling the new project in front of myself as an incentive to finish my current project, saying, “When you get this book done, and it’s done right and it’s awesome, you get to go do something new.” It’s part of what I like about my job, always being able to do something new. It keeps me productive as a writer.

Sara: What advice do you give to aspiring novelists?

Brandon: Practice. Don’t worry about anything other than finding time to write–then spend that time on your stories. Publishing shouldn’t worry you; nothing should. Just practice.

Sara: Where does your inspiration come from?

Brandon: Any given book for me has more than one inception point, which makes it hard for me to discuss where the ideas come from. Books come from a lot of cool ideas bouncing around in my head until some of them stick together.

Sara: Did you always want to be a writer, or did you have other career aspirations?

Brandon: No, I haven’t always wanted to write. Unlike a lot of writers, I was not born as a novelist, and I wasn’t writing as a kid. I actually didn’t like books until I was a teenager. My eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Reader, gave me a fantasy novel, and it was in fantasy novels in which I discovered myself and came to love the idea of storytelling. That’s when I decided I wanted to be a writer. I was fifteen, but I had no idea how to write. I just jumped into it and started practicing. I think that’s the best way for someone to become a writer–you’re a writer if you write. If you sit down and say, “I’m going to be a writer!” and you start writing, working on your fiction, you’re a writer! If you want to break into publishing, the best thing to do is to practice your craft.

Sara: What are some of your favorite activities outside of writing?

Brandon: Most of my free time right now is consumed by playing with my three little boys, ages five, three, and less than a year. They are a handful, but also a delight. When I have a spare moment, my nerd obsession is the card game Magic: The Gathering.

Sara: What are some books, or who are some authors, that you enjoy reading?

Brandon: Terry Pratchett is brilliant, and I buy everything that he writes. If you haven’t read him, you really need to do yourself a favor and pick him up. I also have to mention Guy Gavriel Kay. He’s one of the great writers of the genre, and he’s amazing. His writing is beautiful, interesting, fun, and exciting, but also lyrical.

Sara: Bonus question, I ask all of my interviewees: who is your fictional crushes?

Brandon: Wow. Probably I would have to go back to being a high schooler, which is the last time I would feel that the word “crush” applied to what I felt, and I would say Sioned from Melanie Rawn’s Dragon Prince. I was totally into that woman. She was awesome.

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I hope you all enjoyed this interview with Brandon Sanderson. Do not forget to check out my review of Steelheart, and don’t forget to check out Brandon’s website to learn more about him, and his epic fantasy books. He is definitely an author you should be checking out and I hope this interview made you curious about Brandon and his books!

Thank you Brandon for doing this interview!

October Book Wrap Up!

November 1, 2013November 1, 2013Leave a comment

Books Pledged to Read in 2013: 200 Books

Read so Far: 173

On Track?: Yes! I’m actually 7 books ahead!

Total Books For October: 20

As always, more about if you click the title or cover, you’ll get the review!

The Extra by Kathryn Lasky

Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs

The House of Hades by Rick Riordan

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Just One Year By Gayle Forman

Goddess by Josephine Angelini

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare (Re-Read)

Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan

Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan

Panic by Lauren Oliver (Review Will Come Closer to Book Release in March)

Teardrop by Lauren Kate

Allegiant by Veronica Roth

Reality Boy by A.S. King

Olivia Twisted by Vivi Barnes (Review Next Week!)

Legend by Marie Lu (Re-Read)

Crewel by Gennifer Albin

The Fall of the Hotel Dumort by Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson

52 Reasons to Hate my Father by Jessica Brody

Prodigy by Marie Lu (Re-Read)

Ten by Gretchen McNeil

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What were some of your favorite books that you read in the month of November? Share them in the comments!

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Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson Book Review

October 11, 2013October 11, 20131 Comment

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads Summary:

There are no heroes.

Ten years ago, abortion Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics.

But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.

Nobody fights the Epics… nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, help they spend their lives studying Epics, about it finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart—the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David’s father. For years, like the Reckoners, David’s been studying, and planning—and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He’s seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge..

My Review:

I do have to say one thing that really bothered me about the novel, and its this: what on earth is Calamity? I mean, we briefly get told that it appears in the sky, and then the Epics come but other than that, it just really confused me. Especially when David would look up into the sky and see Calamity and I’m just like, okay, but what IS it? Is it a space ship? Is it a big ball of…something? Maybe this is a question that is going to be answered in the second book (which is titled Firefight, and is due sometime in fall of 2014), but it was something that drove me nuts. Like I said, maybe this was done on purpose, to increase the mysterious of Calamity and the Epics and where they came from, and how they got the way they did, etc, and in that case, I applaud it immensely because that left me feeling incredibly confused.

That being said, I thought this was an interesting take on the idea of superheroes. When I read Brandon’s acknowledgements in the back of the book, and how it was a story idea that he had for awhile, but he never wrote, and he put aside other ideas to focus on this, I thought that was kind of interesting. The premise of this story grabs at you, and I can imagine as the writer to come up with it, it had to be extremely compelling and probably a little irritating to have that story in your head, begging to be written.

The thing is, the idea of people with powers that abuse their powers isn’t anything that new. But the idea that they go around giving themselves names, and identities, like Steelheart or Firefight is just sickening when you realize all the terrible things they do. Its like watching Batman and Superman and Spiderman using their powers to take us over. Its just freaky. I don’t know why but the idea that they name themselves like superheroes just freaks me out. It makes them seem even more demented and cruel.

Because they are so CRUEL. They don’t even really work together as villains either. They’re completely driven by power and greed, and they take each other out in the quest for more power. They use each other, and abuse each other. And Steelheart is almost the worst of them all. He is in power over a city that really has it so much better than others. They’re fed, educated, they have electricity. They aren’t exactly happy but they’re so much better off than others. Its like, just because a tyrant takes care of you, doesn’t mean that tyrant is right, and David and the people he meets through the course of this novel, really see that, and even though its so unlikely and its so little against so many, they’re determined to take Steelheart down.

And the story is addicting the entire time. The people in this novel are action people. They’re intelligent and ready and determined and so while they plan, they also are people of action, and the action keeps you gripping your book the entire time because you honestly have no idea how anything is going to turn out. These are smart and well prepared people but you never know when things are going to go wrong. Honestly, this book would make an absolutely incredible movie. Between the drama, the tension, the planning and the action, it would make a seriously amazing movie.

Oh, the cliffhanger? Thanks Brandon Sanderson. Thanks for having a nice big reveal and then just leaving us hanging here! I can’t be the only one who is now anxiously waiting for Fall 2014, and all the amazing that is going to come with that.

Rating:

4 out of 5 stars