Tuesday Top Ten: Authors New to Me in 2014

December 9, 2014December 9, 20142 Comments

Hello my lovelies! How are you all doing on this fine Tuesday? I hope fantastic. I hope you’re all watching fantastic shows and movies and reading fantastic books and just being all around nerdy and fantastic. Did I ever tell you how much I absolutely love the word “fantastic”? Well, seek I do.

But anyway…I had been trying to think of topics for a Tuesday Top Ten because I’ve been SO incredibly bad at doing them, and I was checking my emails and saw that this week’s post for The Broke and Bookish was the one I’m doing and I thought, hey that’s kind of fun!

So here we are, my top ten authors that are new to me, and a couple of honorable mentions as well because it was SO hard to narrow it down!

Honorable Mentions:

All debut novelists who rocked my world this year. The Jewel and Love Letters to the Dead all absolutely blew my mind and are books that I definitely won’t be forgetting any time soon.

Amy Ewing

Ava Dellaira

10. Tonya Kuper

I met Tonya at ALA in Las Vegas this past summer, and she made an impression on me. I didn’t know what her book was about, I didn’t even really know anything about HER. All I knew was that she was really nice, she was published by Entangled and that she was massively enthusiastic about her book. I went home, followed her on Instagram, became her friend on Facebook, and helped promote the hell out of her debut novel, Anomaly. I love her book and absolutely ADORE her so I’m glad she is a new author to me this year.

9. Cora Carmack

Cora Carmack came on my radar because she was friends with Jennifer Armentrout, who I adore to bits and pieces. The first novel I read of hers didn’t massively impress me, which I think was Losing It, back in the beginning of this year. However, when she started talking about her new series, which boiled down to football, hot guys, romance and sexiness, I knew I couldn’t resist and I immediately bought All Lined Up when it came out. Not long after, All Broke Down, released and I’m officially in love.

8. Lauren Miller

I first met Lauren when she made an appearance at my fave event, Ontario Teen Book Fest. I was already about halfway through the ARC of her new book, Free to Fall. She was so FUNNY and I had a ton of fun talking to her and so I immediately went home and finished this book, and then read her first novel, Parallel. I love both of these books, so fresh, so new, I love the romance, and I adore Lauren. I’m also glad they’re both standalone so that I didn’t get sucked into the never ending abyss of series!

7. Jenny Han

I had never read Jenny Han before. Ever. For some reason, her series just never ever appealed to me. I’m not sure why, but I know I went to the bookstore numerous times, and held her books in my hands and then ultimately decided not to get them. She did a signing in May with Morgan Matson and you had to buy one of their books in order to do the signing. I already had all of Morgan’s books (obviously) so I bought this one. Jenny read from it and it was funny and SHE was funny and I went home THAT night and read it in a few hours. This book is fresh and hilarious and beautiful and I’m already DYING for the sequel.

6. Amie Kaufman and Megan Spooner

I had seen this book circling around the interwebs for a while, I think instagram or some such like that and finally I decided, hey, what the hell, I’m going to buy. Even though I had heard good things, I was still wary. I think the cover is totally beautiful BUT I also think its a little cheesy too haha. Its possible for it to be both right? Right. Anyway, what I found was a fantastically written science fiction novel that also held an incredible romance as well. I BLEW through this book and was amazing at every moment. This book is incredible and brilliant and I’m counting down the days until the sequel comes out.

5. Sara Raasch

I literally read this book about a week and a half ago but that’s how much of an impression it made on me. I’m not really sure how it got on my radar but it did and it sounded really awesome and I liked the title and the cover and her name is Sara without the H which is brilliant and yeah. I was on a book buying ban, technically, but I decided, meh, what the hell, and ended up buying it anyway because I wanted to read it so bad and I am so glad that I did. Its a fantastic fantasy novel that I legitimately canNOT get out of my head and I hope there are more (please be more) because Sara’s writing was just so fluid and descriptive and real and beautiful that I need more of it in my life.

4. Melissa Landers

This was another book that seemed to be floating around my radar on IG and that sort of thing. She was signing ARCs of the sequel, Invaded, at ALA and somehow, miraculously, I got my hands on it. We joked that I got mine early, before Sasha (because I think that’s who I had heard it from) and I kind of felt bad! I had a signed copy of the ARC and I hadn’t even read the first book! So I went to the book store, bought this one and read in a few hours. This book is INCREDIBLE. I swear by it. I keep telling people about it. Its beautiful. I love that its an incredible romance but it also has a great science fiction background with it. I love aliens and there just aren’t enough alien books out there, not ones like this.

3. Victoria Scott

I only found Victoria because of Jessica Brody and I seriously thank her SO much for that. She did a live vlog thing with Victoria because their books were releasing the same day and I won a trivia part of it and got some signed swag from Victoria. So when Fire and Flood released, I immediately bought it and I LOVE it. A lot of people compare it to The Hunger Games, which I *kinda* see but I honestly think its unique and fresh and I love the main character, Tella, so much and I LOVE Pandoras (read the book). I recently won a copy of the sequel and LOVED that as well, and I also read the first of her Dante Walker series and I’m just madly in love with Victoria. I’m glad to be part of her V Mafia now!

2. Kiera Cass

It took me AGES to read this and I can’t believe that it did. I think it was the cover. Scratch that, I know it was the cover and I just didn’t know what it was going to be about really but there wasn’t much desire to read it. That is, until someone gifted it to me. I had heard it described as The Bachelor meets The Hunger Games, and its totally that, in an amazing way. The entire trilogy was totally brilliant and I’m anxiously awaiting The Heir. I’m SO glad I finally buckled down and read it and I’m so glad that I totally have the entire series signed now too! Kiera is always a totally LOVELY human being that I adore to pieces so I’m glad I finally read this book.

1. Catherine Linka

This is the debut novel of a local author friend of mine. I had heard about it through Alethea, who runs Read Now Sleep Later and managed to get my hands on an early copy, because I was going to be meeting her at Ontario Teen Book Fest. This book completely BLEW my mind and I am seriously anxiously awaiting the sequel. I’m going to convince her to get one to me ;) The reason she’s number one is because I’m so inspired by her. She had a struggle to get it published, she had to change things, and work out kinks but the book has done SO well and won awards and she’s SUCH a great friend and inspiration. She’s constantly giving me tips and words of encouragement and I just adore her. Her book is fabulous and I can’t wait for the sequel.

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What are some new authors YOU’VE read this year? Share in the comments!

Book Review: The Jewel by Amy Ewing

December 5, 2014December 2, 20141 Comment

Genre:

Young Adult, hospital Fantasy/Dystopian

Pages:

358

Part of a Series?:

The first in a planned trilogy (I think…)

Release Date:

September 2nd, prostate 2014

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads Summary:

The Jewel means wealth. The Jewel means beauty. The Jewel means royalty. But for girls like Violet, look the Jewel means servitude. Not just any kind of servitude. Violet, born and raised in the Marsh, has been trained as a surrogate for the royalty—because in the Jewel the only thing more important than opulence is offspring.

Purchased at the surrogacy auction by the Duchess of the Lake and greeted with a slap to the face, Violet (now known only as #197) quickly learns of the brutal truths that lie beneath the Jewel’s glittering facade: the cruelty, backstabbing, and hidden violence that have become the royal way of life.

Violet must accept the ugly realities of her existence… and try to stay alive. But then a forbidden romance erupts between Violet and a handsome gentleman hired as a companion to the Duchess’s petulant niece. Though his presence makes life in the Jewel a bit brighter, the consequences of their illicit relationship will cost them both more than they bargained for.

My Review:

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I picked up this book. I had heard a lot about it but I knew very little about what exactly it was about. So when I got through the first few chapters, my mind was absolutely blown and I was hooked. Amy grabs you, hooks you from the first page and keeps you addicted.

This book is absolutely frightening. I don’t know that its intended to be so but it is. These girls are raised to be perfect: beautiful, intelligent, talented. They are bid on by the wealthy families that live in the Jewel to give them children. They’re surrogates for these families; that’s their entire purpose in life. And they really seem okay with that. There are definitely benefits for it. They’re given an education and their families receive compensation for their daughters being pulled from their homes. They are told they will provide a child and then retire with other surrogates like themselves.

But when Violet realizes that there is so much more to it than she realizes, I’m just floored. Secret plots and fierce competition between the noble families and absolute cruelty. Surrogates die, get beaten, are covered up, used, paraded around like show dogs, dragged around on actual leashes. It blew my mind because of how totally frightening it was. It didn’t seem to be something that outside of the realm of possibilities. Violet is taught that her life is supposed to be better; differently, definitely but better because of her being a surrogate and instead she’s like a prize show dog, paraded around in pretty outfits and controlled like crazy. The prospect of it, the craziness of it, is just frightening and cruel. There were several times in the book where I actually gasped out loud because something shocked me so badly.

And yet there’s also an incredible romance built into it as well. A boy comes into Violet’s life, a boy that so incredibly off limits but she can’t help but want to be with and I can’t help but ship it too. Its subtle and the build up of it is just…its beautiful. They have to keep it hidden and keep it small because of the expectations they both live under. Violet is expected to become pregnant with her “owner”s baby, amongst other things that I won’t say because, you know, “spoilers”. The boy she meets has an important job to fulfill for Violet’s owner as well and its all very conflicting. The ways that they find to be together and its perfect in its complete wrongness. You know its going to end badly, you keep reading and you just KNOW its going to end badly but its like a car crash on the highway, you can’t keep your eyes off of it.

The thing that really sold me on this novel, and Amy Ewing, and the five stars I give it, is the ending. Just when you think you have a handle on the story, just when you think you have a general idea of where its going, the book ends and completely blows your mind. I mean, completely. I was left, with my mouth hanging open, when that book ended. I couldn’t believe it at all and I loved every bit of it. I’m dying for the sequel. Its going to magnificent and I can’t wait to see what else Amy brings in. She’s a fantastic writer, a great story teller, her world building is superb and she creates an incredible romance.