Review: Nightshade by Andrea Cremer

Nightshade

Author: Andrea Cremer

Publisher: Philomel, 2010

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Buy: Amazon ♥ B&N ♥ TBD

Goodreads

Calla Tor has always known her destiny: After graduating from the Mountain School, she'll be the mate of sexy alpha wolf Ren Laroche and fight with him, side by side, ruling their pack and guarding sacred sites for the Keepers. But when she violates her masters' laws by saving a beautiful human boy out for a hike, Calla begins to question her fate, her existence, and the very essence of the world she has known. By following her heart, she might lose everything--including her own life. Is forbidden love worth the ultimate sacrifice?

On My Wishlist (2)

On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. The idea is to list all the books you desperately want but haven't actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.

Cast in Ruin (Chronicles of Elantra #7)  
Author: Michelle Sagara West
Publisher: Luna
Release Date: 29 Sept 2011 
Genre: Fantasy


Summary from Goodreads:

Seven corpses are discovered in the streets of a Dragon's fief. All identical, down to their clothing.

Kaylin Neya is assigned to discover who they were, who killed them—and why. Is the evil lurking at the borders of Elantra preparing to cross over?

At least the investigation delays her meeting with the Dragon Emperor. And as the shadows grow longer over the fiefs, Kaylin must use every skill she's ever learned to save the people she's sworn to protect.

Sword in hand, dragons in the sky, this time there's no retreat and no surrender...

Edit: She put up a teaser of the first chapter today! I'm so happy!

Review: Dragon's Oath by P.C. and Kristin Cast

Dragon’s Oath 
(A House of Night Novella)

Author: P.C. and Kristin Cast

Publisher: Atom, 2011

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Buy: Amazon ♥ B&N ♥ TBD

Goodreads

In early 19th century England, long before he’s a professor at the Tulsa House of Night, Bryan Lankford is a troublesome yet talented human teen who thinks he can get away with anything… until his father, a wealthy nobleman, has finally had enough, and banishes him to America. When Bryan is Marked on the docks and given the choice between the London House of Night and the dragon-prowed ship to America, he chooses the Dragon – and a brand new fate.

Becoming a Fledgling may be exciting, but it opens a door to a dangerous world.... In 1830’s St. Louis, the Gateway to the West, Dragon Lankford becomes a Sword Master, and soon realizes there are both frightening challenges and beautiful perks. Like Anastasia, the captivating young Professor of Spells and Rituals at the Tower Grove House of Night, who really should have nothing to do with a fledgling… 

But when a dark power threatens, Dragon is caught in its focus. Though his uncanny fighting skills make him a powerful fledgling, is he strong enough to ward off evil, while protecting Anastasia as well? Will his choices save her—or destroy them all?  

Review: The Bone Palace by Amanda Downum

The Bone Palace 

(Necromancer Chronicles, Book 2)

Author: Amanda Downum

Publisher: Orbit, 2010

Genre: Fantasy

Buy: Amazon ♥ B&N ♥ TBD

Goodreads

Death is no stranger in the city of Erisín –but some deaths attract more attention than others.

When a prostitute dies carrying a royal signet, Isyllt Iskaldur, necromancer and agent of the Crown, is called to investigate. Her search leads to desecrate tombs below the palace, and the lightless vaults of the vampiric vrykoloi deep beneath the city. But worse things than vampires are plotting in Erisín.

As a sorcerous plague sweeps the city and demons stalk the streets, Isyllt must decide who she’s prepared to betray – before the city built on bones falls into blood and fire.

TGIF

Meme by GReads

This Friday's Question:

Character Envy: If you could be one character from a book, 

who would you choose & why?

1) Rose Hathaway, from Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series. If there ever was a more badass teenage girl around, it’s Rose. She is fiercely loyal to her friends, fights for what she believes in, is not afraid to get her hands dirty, and always needs to be in action. She has a hunk of a Russian boyfriend who can make you go weak at the knees with just one look.

2) Mercy Thompson from Patricia Briggs' Mercedes Thompson series. She is a VW mechanic and coyote shifter with some pretty awesome tattoos and a kick ass body to display them. Her best friends are a hippie vampire, a gay werewolf and his human mate. Plus she has a drool worthy werewolf neighbor who always manages to bring the sexual tension up a notch...or two. 

~lauramw

3) Aly of Pirate's Swoop from Tamora Pierce's Daughter of the Lioness novels. Her mind runs a mile per second, and her plans cover every scenario possible, and she leads a whole nation to revolution. Although this calls for the dethatched nature of a spymaster, Aly manages to make friends and become intensely loyal to them. Also, with the persistence and affection of a crow-turned-sexy-man, she learns to love.

4) Kaylin Neya of Michelle Sagara West's Chronicles of Elantra. She lives in a world were dragons stay in their human forms and their anger is reflected by the color of their eyes (run if you see the eyes turn orange or red), god-like races constantly battle in court, a lion-man is her boss and roars at her daily for being late to work, phone calls are made through mirrors, and she has these weird tattoos on her skin which not even the greater mages (the dragons) can decipher or match in power. Her childhood sweetheart, turned grown-up enemy really cares and looks out for her, and even if she doesn’t want to admit it to herself, she still loves him.

Friday Finds (3)

Friday Finds is hosted by Should Be Reading.The idea is to post great books that you heard about/discover this past week.

~My Werewolf Finds~

Fair Game by Patricia Briggs

When the FBI request a pack consultant on a serial killer case they're following in Boston, Anna and Charles are sent in. They quickly realize that not only the last two victims were werewolves – all of them were.

Someone is targeting their kind. And if Charles and Anna can't get to the bottom of this mystery, they may be next...

Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Quincie Morris has never felt more alone. Her parents are dead, and her hybrid-werewolf first love is threatening to embark on a rite of passage that will separate them forever. Then, as she and her uncle are about to unveil their hot vampire-themed restaurant, a brutal murder leaves them scrambling for a chef. Can Quincie transform their new hire into a culinary Dark Lord before opening night? Can he wow the crowd in his fake fangs, cheap cape, and red contact lenses - or is there more to this earnest face than meets the eye? As human and preternatural forces clash, a deadly love triangle forms, and the line between predator and prey begins to blur. Who-s playing whom? And how long can Quincie play along before she loses everything?

Wolf at the Door by Christie Warren

Sullivan Quinn didn’t travel 3,000 miles from his native Ireland and his wolf pack just to chase rabidly after the most delectable quarry he’s ever seen. Quinn is in America on a mission—to warn his Other brethren of a shadowy group willing to use murder and mayhem to bring them down. But one whiff of this Foxwoman’s delicious honeysuckle fragrance and he knows that she is more than a colleague or a conquest…she is his mate.

Anthropologist Cassidy Poe is a world-renowned authority on social interaction, but the overpowering desire she feels around Quinn defies every ounce of her expertise. Working by his side to uncover The Others’ enemies poses risks she never expected—to her own safety, to those she loves, and to her heart, as every encounter with Quinn proves more blissfully erotic than the last…

Now, with no one to trust but each other, Quinn and Cassidy face a foe that’s edging closer every day, threatening to destroy the life they’ve always known, and the passion they’ve just discovered

~My Dystopia Finds~

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old-girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war- and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

Eve by Anna Carey

The year is 2032, sixteen years after a deadly virus—and the vaccine intended to protect against it—wiped out most of the earth’s population. The night before eighteen-year-old Eve’s graduation from her all-girls school she discovers what really happens to new graduates, and the horrifying fate that awaits her.

Fleeing the only home she’s ever known, Eve sets off on a long, treacherous journey, searching for a place she can survive. Along the way she encounters Caleb, a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve has been taught to fear them, but Caleb slowly wins her trust...and her heart. He promises to protect her, but when soldiers begin hunting them, Eve must choose between true love and her life.

Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari

A thrilling tale of adventure, romance, and one girl's unyielding courage through the darkest of nightmares.

Epidemics, floods, droughts--for sixteen-year-old Lucy, the end of the world came and went, taking 99% of the population with it. As the weather continues to rage out of control, and Sweepers clean the streets of plague victims, Lucy survives alone in the wilds of Central Park. But when she's rescued from a pack of hunting dogs by a mysterious boy named Aidan, she reluctantly realizes she can't continue on her own. She joins his band of survivors, yet, a new danger awaits her: the Sweepers are looking for her. There's something special about Lucy, and they will stop at nothing to have her.

***Summaries are all from Goodreads***

Follow Friday (2)

Follow Friday is hosted By Parajunkee.com and Alisoncanread.com

This week question is: 

What T-shirt slogan best describes you?

I know it asks for one, but these three are like the sum of me :)

I'm Smiling that alone should scare you.

Review: Forever by Maggie Stiefvater

Forever  
(Wolves of Mercy Falls, Book 3)

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Publisher: Scholastic Press, 2011

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Buy: Amazon ♥ B&N ♥ TBD

Goodreads

Then.

When Sam met Grace, he was a wolf and she was a girl. Eventually he found a way to become a boy, and their love moved from a curious distance to the intense closeness of shared lives.

Now.

That should have been the end of their story. But Grace was not meant to stay human. Now she is the wolf. And the wolves of Mercy Falls are about to be killed in one final, spectacular hunt.

Forever.

Sam would do anything for Grace. But can one boy and one love really change a hostile, predatory world? The past, the present, and the future are about to collide in one pure moment – a moment of death or life, farewell or forever.

Dreamscape

Finally it’s here! The first of my dream-story-posts! :)

DeviantArt ~Pestilence

The alarms wailed their warning as the storm rapidly approached the city. Rain had begun to pour increasingly a couple of hours ago, and now people were being evacuated in buses before the streets flooded and became impassable. The streets were however already overflowing with people. An atmosphere of barely contained hysteria permeated the air as I stepped out of my house. I thought it was all a disaster waiting to happen.

The people were being ushered into buses, and  when my turn came I sat beside classmates all drenched and cold. The bus made its way slowly to the city’s border, down a road that ran parallel to the sea. The waves were terrible in their fury, pounding against the cliffs. I screamed as one managed to pour over them and hit our bus, making it collide with a barrier on the other side of the road. It was impossible to leave the city this way, and so the bus turned to take us back.

DeviantArt ~Meral

It dropped us off in a public plaza, where apparently everyone was being told to return to their homes once again because the evacuation couldn’t be completed. I had already decided to go home, and without saying goodbye to my friends I started walking away, except I felt a hand on my shoulder.

Turning I see it’s him. Him whom I’ve known and liked forever, yet never had the audacity to tell. Telling me good luck, he walks away. But I stand there, at a crossroads looking at his retreating back, knowing that if I don’t say anything, it’ll be the last time I see him.

I call out to him, and he stops.

I call out again, louder this time, and he turns.

I run to him and stand before him for a minute before asking, “What are you doing right now?”

DeviantArt ~Midnight Rain

Taking my hand, he smiles. “Waiting for you,” he says, and I just know that I’ve made the right choice. 

We walk down the road together.

Waiting On Wednesday (3)

Waiting on Wednesday is the weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

I am eagerly waiting for... 

Mastiff 

(Beka Cooper, Book 3) 

by Tamora Pierce!

I've been a super fan of Tamora Pierce since I first laid my hands on her Song of the Lioness quartet. After that it was just pure joy reading the rest. And since the series are 3 to 4 books long each well...the fun never ended! Set in the Tortall Universe are Song of the Lioness (quartet), The Immortals (quartet), Protector of the Small (quartet), and Daughter of the Lioness (duology). All are coming-of-age novels and have strong female characters. Really, like I grew up with this stuff and her heroines were like role models to me. 

The Beka Cooper series/trilogy is about the ancestor of George Cooper, who is a main character in the Tortall Universe novels. It's very much like what Cassandra Clare did with her Mortal Instruments series, which now has a past story we can read in The Infernal Devices. Can't wait to read the conclusion to Beka's story!

Summary from Goodreads: 

Beka and her friends will face their greatest and most important challenge ever when the young heir to the kingdom vanishes. They will be sent out of Corus on a trail that appears and disappears, following a twisting road throughout Tortall. It will be her greatest Hunt—if she can survive the very powerful people who do not want her to succeed in her goal.

Teaser Tuesday (3)

 

Teaser Tuesdays is a meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading. The rules are very simple and fun:

1.     Grab your current read.

2.    Let the book fall open to a random page. 

3.    Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. 

4.    You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from ... that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given! 

5.    Most importantly... NO spoilers! If the lines that you picked give away too much, then pick another.

My teaser is…

"Ah, my daughter," he said. "Eighteen, and already you've been accused of murder, aided felons, and acquired a death count higher than most guardians will ever see." He paused. "I couldn't be prouder."

~Abe Mazur in Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead

Out Today!

Amazon

Stormlord's Exile  
by Glenda Larke

Summary from Goodreads:

SHALE is finally free from his greatest enemy. But now, he is responsible for bringing life-giving rain to all the people of the Quartern. He must stretch his powers to the limit or his people will die-if they don't meet a nomad's blade first. And while Shale's own highlords and waterpriests plot against him, his Reduner brother plots his revenge.

TERELLE is Shale's secret weapon, covertly boosting his powers with her own mystical abilities. But she is compelled by the strange magic of her people and will one day have to leave Shale's side. No one knows what waits for her across the desert, but her people gave the Quartern its first Stormlord and they may save Shale and his people once again-or lead them to their doom.

Excitement Level:

This is the third and final volume of the Stormlord series and I can't tell you how much torture it has been to wait for this one! And I picked this series up recently so I've only been waiting a month. Torture I tell you.

Amazon

Eye of the Tempest  

(Jane True Novel, Book 4) by Nicole Peeler

Summary from Goodreads:

Nothing says "home" like being attacked by humans with very large guns, as Jane and Anyan discover when they arrive in Rockabill. These are professionals, brought into kill, and they bring Anyan down before either Jane or the barghest can react. Seeing Anyan fall awakens a terrible power within Jane, and she nearly destroys herself taking out their attackers.

Jane wakes, weeks later, to discover that she's not the only thing that's been stirring. Something underneath Rockabill is coming to life: something ancient, something powerful, and something that just might destroy the world.

Jane and her friends must act, striking out on a quest that only Jane can finish. For whatever lurks beneath the Old Sow must be stopped...and Jane's just the halfling for the job.

Excitement level:

Super excited for this one too. I think I'm mentioned this before but I'm waiting for this one to get home so I can read it along the third book for an epic overload of paranormal romance.

Wildefire  
by Karsten Knight

Summary from Goodreads:

Every flame begins with a spark.

Ashline Wilde is having a rough sophomore year. She’s struggling to find her place as the only Polynesian girl in school, her boyfriend just cheated on her, and now her runaway sister, Eve, has decided to barge back into her life. When Eve’s violent behavior escalates and she does the unthinkable, Ash transfers to a remote private school nestled in California’s redwoods, hoping to put the tragedy behind her. But her fresh start at Blackwood Academy doesn’t go as planned. Just as Ash is beginning to enjoy the perks of her new school—being captain of the tennis team, a steamy romance with a hot, local park ranger—Ash discovers that a group of gods and goddesses have mysteriously enrolled at Blackwood…and she’s one of them. To make matters worse, Eve has resurfaced 

Excitement level:

New books always, um, excite me. So, yeah! I'm thrilled for this debut novel! I haven't ordered it yet, but it's just a click away with the Kindle :)

Review: Spirit Bound & Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead

Author: Richelle Mead

Publisher: Razorbill, 2010

Genre: YA Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance

Musing Mondays (2)

 Musing Mondays is a meme hosted by Should Be Reading.

July 25: This week’s musing asks…

Do you need to have your owned books out where you can see them, or are you okay with them being stored away?

I’d love to have all my books out ,but sadly I don’t have the space. Right now I’ve got them stored in those huge plastic container box things. I’ have about 10 of those (all full), plus more books in a small bookshelf (also full) and more on my desk. Seriously, I’m going to have to start throwing out things to make space for my books… you know unimportant things like clothes and underwear...

I think the ultimate dream here would be a library room with wall to wall bookshelves :)