Review + Giveaway - Blog Tour: The Artful

Title: The Artful
Series: Shadows of the City #1

Author: Wilbert Stanton
Published by: Curiosity Quills Press
Publication date: May 27th 2014
Genres: Post-Apocalyptic, Young Adult

New York City, 2025: Everything is changed. The city that never sleeps is now a land of death and decay. A rampant virus has taken over and the survivors have become carriers, quarantined from the rest of the world.

Twist and Dodger grew up in the streets, the sewers and underground tunnels – their playground. They aren’t heroes. They just like attention; and stealing meds from the rich and giving them to the poor is their golden ticket.

On their latest raid, they unknowingly steal a cure that puts them square between the ailing Emperor of Manhattan and the war hungry Governor of Brooklyn and forces them on a quest into the darkest shadows of their putrefying world.

Blog Tour: Review+Excerpt+Giveaway!! Never Let Go by Nicola Haken

In the final book of the Take My Series, Emily and Dexter are finally on course to a happy future. Arriving back in the UK with Aunt Sarah in tow, everything seems to be slotting into place. For the first time in his life, Dexter has found his purpose. Surrounded by family, friends and the woman he adores, he has at long last made peace with his demons and is determined to fight for the life he now knows he deserves.

With best friend Rachel back by her side and a resolve to work things out with her parents once and for all, Emily’s life is also on the right track. Or so she thinks… When a tragic revelation threatens to destroy Emily’s world, it sends her spiraling down a path leading to more secrets, lies and heartache – leaving her questioning her whole life and everyone in it. To top it off, Emily almost lost one of the most important men in her life once before, is it about to happen again? “This is it, doll. Our future. I need you to hold on to it and never let go.”
(Not suitable for under 18’s due to language, sexual content and explicit drug use)

Review: Dare You To by Katie McGarry

Title: Dare You To

Author: Katie McGarry

Series: Pushing the Limits #2

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Publication Date: May 28^th 2013

Format: library e-book

Pages: 480

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom's freedom and her own happiness. That's how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn't want her and going to a school that doesn't understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does....

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all....

Blog Tour: Review, Excerpt and Givaway! Lean On Me by Nicola Haken

Title: Lean On Me

Series: Take My Hand

Author: Nicola Haken

Publication Date: January 21, 2014

Format: e-book 

Rachel Mason oozes confidence. She’s outgoing, adventurous and would chop off her right arm before caring what other people think of her or her disability. 

Right?

Jared Mattheson on the other hand, is more than a little goofy and a whole lot of carefree. He’s happy living the bachelor life on his father’s credit card, takes nothing seriously and wouldn’t know difficulty if it slapped him in the face.

Right?

With Emily and Dexter away in the States, Rachel and Jared are left behind to keep each other company. They share the same sense of fun, their personalities bounce off one another perfectly and perhaps inevitably, they become best friends. But what happens when the lines of friendship start to blur? How will they cope when the sides of themselves they’ve kept hidden from the world for so long begin to show?

Their journey together may have started with fun, games and alcohol – but it seems the future has other ideas. 

Turns out, even the strongest of people need someone to lean on sometimes.

(Not suitable for under 18’s due to language, sexual content and explicit drug use)

Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Author: Laini Taylor

Series: Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Publication Date: June 5^th, 2012

Format: purchased paperback

Pages: 418

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself.

Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway!! An Imperfect Circle by R.J.Sable

"What do you do when the boy who rescues the last remnants of your soul rejects what’s left straight afterwards? You move on. That’s what you do. I’m not the sort of girl who sits on the sofa with a bucket of ice cream mourning over anything. Especially not over a boy."

Sixteen year old Ellie Belrose has spent the last five years rebuilding her life after something she'd rather forget. She's finally getting somewhere but, when a figure from her past makes an unwanted reappearance in her life, she's forced to confront her demons. Karl Carter is fascinated by Ellie the moment he sees her but he doesn't realise she's Elise. His Elise. He never forgot her and still isn't willing to - despite her insistence. The two of them are stubborn, angry at the world, and sparks fly when they come together. Can they help each other move on from the past or will they drag each other back there?

Review: Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Title: Pushing the Limits

Author: Katie McGarry
Series: Pushing Limits #1

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Published Date: July 31.2012

Format: library e-book

Pages: 392 

No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with freaky scars on her arms. Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night. All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal.

But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined. They should have nothing in common. And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.

Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away. And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.

Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

 

Title: Shatter Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Series: Shatter Me #1

Publisher: Harper

Publication date: November 11, 2011

Format: Hardcover purchased

Pages: 338

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

Review Anathema by K.A. Tucker

Title: Anathema

Series: Casual Enchantment #1

Author: K.A. Tucker

Publisher: Smashwords

Publication date: May 25^th 2011

Pages: 661

Format: e-book (nook)

Evangeline has spent her teenage years in obscurity. Her foster parents have the emotional aptitude of robots and her classmates barely acknowledge her existence. About to turn eighteen and feeling like a social pariah, she is desperate to connect with someone. Anyone.
When Evangeline meets Sophie after literally stumbling upon her café, she believes she’s found that connection. Willing to do anything to keep it, she accepts a job as Sofie’s assistant and drops everything to fly to Manhattan, where she is thrust into a luxurious world of Prada, diamonds, and limitless cash. 
With such generosity and kindness, it’s easy for Evangeline to dismiss certain oddities... like Sofie’s erratic and sometimes violent behavior, and the monstrous guard dogs. She’s even willing to dismiss her vivid dreams of mob-style murders, beautiful homeless people living in caves, and white-eyed demons that haunt her each night as figments of her imagination—especially when one of those figments is the gorgeous Caden. When she wakes up with bite marks on her neck, the fairy tale quickly turns into a nightmare. She slowly unravels the mystery surrounding Sofie and friends, and the reality of the bites and the “dreams.” What she discovers is far more mysterious and terrible than anything she could have imagined. 

All is Bright By Sarah Pekkanen

Title: All is Bright

Author: Sarah Pekkanen

Publisher: Washington Square Press

Published: December 2010

Pages: 37 pages

Format: e-book novella 

Thirty-year-old Elise Andrews couldn't bring herself to marry Griffin, her childhood friend turned sweetheart, so she let him walk away. Eight months after their breakup, she arrives in her hometown of Chicago on Christmas Eve and hears a voice from the past calling her name in the grocery store. It’s Griffin’s mother, Janice, who invites Elise over for a neighborhood gathering of eggnog and carols. 

Walking into Janice’s house sends Elise tumbling headlong into memories of her relationship with Griffin—and with Janice, who exudes the kind of warmth Elise ached for after her own mom passed away when she was six. But Griffin has moved on, and suddenly Elise doubts her decision to give him up and lose her chance at being folded into his wonderful family. Confused and reeling, she goes in search of an answer to a universal question: How do we say good-bye to people we've loved without losing everything they've meant to us? 

Heartwarming and witty, All is Bright is a charming story about coming home for the holidays and finding gifts in unexpected places

Review of The Testing by Joelle Charbonne

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Isn’t that what they say? But how close is too close when they may be one in the same? 

The Seven Stages War left much of the planet a charred wasteland. The future belongs to the next generation’s chosen few who must rebuild it. But to enter this elite group, candidates must first pass The Testing—their one chance at a college education and a rewarding career. 

Cia Vale is honored to be chosen as a Testing candidate; eager to prove her worthiness as a University student and future leader of the United Commonwealth. But on the eve of her departure, her father’s advice hints at a darker side to her upcoming studies--trust no one. 

But surely she can trust Tomas, her handsome childhood friend who offers an alliance? Tomas, who seems to care more about her with the passing of every grueling (and deadly) day of the Testing. To survive, Cia must choose: love without truth or life without trust.

First Review EVER ... here we go!

This is the second book in the Veronica Rossi’s Under the Ever Night series. If you are not familiar with these books go to your nearest library and put them both on hold NOW. I would say just check them out but I bet there will be a waiting list.

The Jist: In Through the Ever Night Aria and Perry are reunited and it feels so good (in singing voice)! … For about ten minutes. As the new Blood Lord, Perry wants Aria to stay with the Tides but they are not nearly as found of the outsider as their new leader. And what’s worse, the Anther storms are getting stronger and more deadly by the day. Perry and Aria are faced with some difficult decisions in an effort to save the ones they love.