Wednesday, August 31, 2016

What about Wednesday: Supernatural Books


What About Wednesday: Books about supernatural beings

Today we thought that we would put a spin on our normal wednesday posts. Since we couldn't agree on just one creature, we decided to each choose one and base our reccomendations from that! Here they are:

Ola- Legends
1. Riders by Veronica Rossi
2. Legacy of Kings by Eleanor Herman
3. Egg & Spoon by Gregory Maguire


Lauren- Mermaids
1. The Siren by Kiera Cass
2. Of Poseidon by Anna Banks
3. Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs



Mari- Witches
1. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
2. The Initiation by L.J.Smith
3. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradely

That's all for today!
-Your friends at the Autumn Bookshelf

Monday, August 29, 2016

Book Review: The Graces

The Graces by Laure Eve

Released: September 6, 2016
Read: August 2016
Publisher: Amulet Books
Format: ARC, 352 pages
Series: The Graces #1

Description on Goodreads:

    In The Graces, the first rule of witchcraft states that if you want something badly enough, you can get it . . . no matter who has to pay.
     Everyone loves the Graces. Fenrin, Thalia, and Summer Grace are captivating, wealthy, and glamorous. They’ve managed to cast a spell over not just their high school but also their entire town—and they’re rumored to have powerful connections all over the world. If you’re not in love with one of them, you want to be them. Especially River: the loner, new girl at school. She’s different from her peers, who both revere and fear the Grace family. She wants to be a Grace more than anything. And what the Graces don’t know is that River’s presence in town is no accident.
     This fabulously addictive fantasy combines sophisticated and haunting prose with a gut-punching twist that readers will be dying to discuss. Perfect for fans of We Were Liars as well as nostalgic classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the 1996 movie The Craft, The Graces marks the beginning of a new wave of teen witches.

Review:
   How do I even begin to explain my opinion? Well, I guess, for starters, River is just like the others. She's head-over-heels in love with the Graces and can't help but stalk them. She thinks she's different, that she's special, but she does what all the others do: follow the Graces around, believe they walk on air, and go along with what they say. She pretends to be a dissimilar person when she's with them, and even renamed herself River. ( River's not her real official first name!)
    River has a mysterious and fascinating back story. She avoids talking about herself and prefers to act like a mirror, deflecting all personal questions and asking questions of her own instead. She doesn't want to talk about, or even think about, the past that haunts her, and is dead-set on fixing her mistakes. It's not until the end that we find out just how huge her mistakes are.
    What a plot twist, though. It came totally out of nowhere, okay, not entirely. But after it was revealed, I couldn't help but notice all the little clues I should have seen earlier. Random scenes that didn't really make sense to the plot at the time, but completely tied in later. These little details, no matter how seemingly innocent, gave insight to what was to come, and I wish, WISH, I paid more attention before. It seems careless now that I didn't.
    Are the Graces witches? That's the real question. And after finishing the novel, I am still left pondering the answer. What do you think? Read the book and comment your answer.

P.S. I didn't notice until Ola pointed it out, but the oldest daughter is named Thalia Grace, as in Percy Jackson's Thalia Grace. The Daughter of Zeus Thalia has more in common with Summer though.


Favourite Quotes:
  • " See, real witches would be tuned in to the rhythm of the universe. They wouldn't mathematically weigh and counterweigh every possible option because creatures of magic don't do that. They weren't afraid of surrendering themselves. They had the courage to be different, and they never cared what people thought. It just wasn't important to them."
  • " Just because it sounded unbelievable didn't mean it couldn't also be true."
  • " You love the library, all the brooding quiet and rustling paper. You hear the call of the books, like the far-off howling of wolves."
  • " Books are knowledge. Knowledge is power."
  • " So never mind being invited, I'm the goddamn host."
  • " Sometimes it's okay. Like now. We're drunk. We feel good. But tomorrow... life crowds in again. And then you find another way to block out the truth, just so you can get through the day. If we let ourselves see too much truth, it scares us. You have to block it out, or you'd never get anything done. You'd just wander around being perpetually depressed or amazed. That doesn't mean we shouldn't want to see the truth. It's just that maybe we have to see it in stages to be able to understand it."
  • " My fury was coming, and with it the fear that was always swept along in its wake, drowning in its tidal wave."

Rating: 7.5/10

Recommended if you like: magic, witchcraft, high school drama, curses, fantasy, reading about very close and very distant families

Keep flipping pages,
Lauren



Friday, August 26, 2016

Book Review: Altered

Altered by Jennifer Rush

Released: January 1, 2013
Read: August 2016
Publisher: Little Brown Books
Format: Hardcover, 323 pages
Series: Altered #1

Description on Goodreads:

    When you can’t trust yourself, who can you believe?
    Everything about Anna’s life is a secret. Her father works for the Branch at the helm of its latest project: monitoring and administering treatments to the four genetically altered boys in the lab below their farmhouse. There’s Nick, Cas, Trev . . . and Sam, who has stolen Anna’s heart. When the Branch decides it’s time to take the boys, Sam stages an escape, killing the agents sent to retrieve them. 
    Anna is torn between following Sam or staying behind in the safety of her everyday life. But her father pushes her to flee, making Sam promise to keep her away from the Branch, at all costs. There’s just one problem. Sam and the boys don’t remember anything before living in the lab—not even their true identities.
    Now on the run, Anna soon discovers that she and Sam are connected in more ways than either of them expected. And if they’re both going to survive, they must piece together the clues of their past before the Branch catches up to them and steals it all away.

Review:

    Wow. Just wow. The entire time I read Altered, I couldn't help but fall in love with the characters. Can, the outgoing prankster; Trev, the realistic genius; Nick, the bad-tempered badass; Sam, the controlling yet slightly endearing leader; and Anna, the shy yet aggressive tag along. The combination was explosive and extremely interesting. Whenever Nick pissed someone off, Cas or Trev would always be there to calm everyone down. Oddly, Cas was the only one Nick put up with, even though they are polar opposites. Nick and Sam seemed the most complex of the characters for obvious reasons. Nick, with his glares and snide remarks, made me believe he was hiding his insecurities and issues behind his aggravating disguise, and Sam never talked about himself. He didn't want to say too much about what he remembered, which gave off a mysterious feel about him. Clearly Anna was lured by this but I missed out on the charm. 
    Anna herself I didn't particularly like. She was needy and clingy, and had to have everyone make sure she was okay 24/7. I mean, I get it. The boys were altered so there was no way she could be as awesome, intelligent or fit as them. But she could've made things less difficult for them.
    The story itself made me think. Not because I was trying to figure out what was going to happen next, but because I didn't understand what was happening presently. How did one event lead to the next? How did they know to do what they were doing? It was just a bit too confusing for me, and I wish it was more clearly written. 

Favourite Quotes:
  • "Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint." -Mark Twain
  • I poked him in the knee. "What would we do without you?" "Die of boredom." "Or prosper in the silence."
  • "You and I are the sum of a void left by the absence of someone we love." 

Rating: 7.5/10

Recommended if you like: science experiments involving people, warfare, genetically modified human beings, fantasy, government-induced problems, adventure, action

Keep flipping pages,
Lauren

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Book Review: Baby Doll

Baby Doll by Hollie Overton

Released: July 12, 2016
Read: August 2016
Publisher: Redhook
Format: ARC, 281 pages
Series: Stand-alone

Description on Goodreads:

Held captive for eight years, Lily has grown from a teenager to an adult in a small basement prison. Her daughter Sky has been a captive her whole life. But one day their captor leaves the deadbolt unlocked.

This is what happens next...

...to her twin sister, to her mother, to her daughter...and to her captor. 

Review:

    When I first read the inside description of Baby Doll, I expected that the kidnapper would get away with it. I thought it would be a simple novel about how Rick still finds ways to torture Lily even after she escapes, but I was mistaken. It's about the aftermath of Lily's eight year long disappearance, from the perspective of Lily herself, her twin sister, her mother, and her abuser. It's unique reading from Rick's point of view specifically. The way he says that Lily is in love with him gives you a glimpse of the madman he truly is. And the fact that no one knows how crazy he is, no one can see behind his cool and easy-going bravado, shows just how calculatively evil he is.
    The story itself wasn't as thrilling or scary as I hoped, but it was an enjoyable one-time-read that was very informative. I didn't realize just how much one person could effect so many lives, for better, or for worse.

Favourite Quote:
  • "Sleep consumed her, a dark, voracious, and winged thing stealing her away from the crushing weight of her failures."

Rating: 6.5/10

Recommended if you like: subtle thrillers, reading the thoughts of a psychopath, reading the aftermath of depressing events, twins, reading about kidnapping

Keep flipping pages,
Lauren

Monday, August 15, 2016

Book Review: The Forgetting

The Forgetting by Sharon Cameron

Released: September 13, 2016
Read: July 2016
Publisher: Scholastic
Format: ARC, 416 pages
Series: Stand-alone

Description on Goodreads:

    What isn't written, isn't remembered. Even your crimes.
    Nadia lives in the city of Canaan, where life is safe and structured, hemmed in by white stone walls and no memory of what came before. But every twelve years the city descends into the bloody chaos of the Forgetting, a day of no remorse, when each person's memories – of parents, children, love, life, and self – are lost. Unless they have been written.
    In Canaan, your book is your truth and your identity, and Nadia knows exactly who hasn't written the truth. Because Nadia is the only person in Canaan who has never forgotten.
    But when Nadia begins to use her memories to solve the mysteries of Canaan, she discovers truths about herself and Gray, the handsome glassblower, that will change her world forever. As the anarchy of the Forgetting approaches, Nadia and Gray must stop an unseen enemy that threatens both their city and their own existence – before the people can forget the truth. And before Gray can forget her.



Review:
    "I am made of my memories". Nadia, the Dyer's daughter lives in the city of Canaan, where life is simple and everything is not as it seems. Every twelve years, the citizens of Canaan forget who they are, who they love, and everything that once mattered to them. But not Nadia. She remembers everything that the people around her don't. It's quite fascinating to read about how having memories isn't always a good thing, and that sometimes it's better to forget.
   The Forgetting by Sharon Cameron is filled with bright, enthusiastic characters, who leave who throbbing to meet them by the end of the novel. As for the city, it's as if you're actually there, walking the streets along side Nadia and Gray. Each house and each occupation is described beautifully, so is beyond the wall. I'd recommend this novel to anyone that likes Divergent by Veronica Roth or the Giver by Lois Lowry, for it is a combination of both and leaves you wanting more.

Favourite Quotes:

  • “It's my choice today that is the memory of tomorrow. It's my choice that determines what I will become. Not the memories of the past.” 
  • “The past is never really gone. It only lies in wait for you, remembered or forgotten.” 
  • “Truth can look so flimsy and feeble sometimes. It's one of the things I hold against it.” 
  • "I am made of my memories."
  • "Knowing the truth makes me alone. I wrote that once, but I think I was wrong. Fear of pain is what has made me alone. But today I realized that pain and love have a balance. I can feel so much of one only because I feel so much of the other." 
  • "No one could take as many risks as I do and never be caught. I know this. But when my day comes, I will never say I'm sorry. Because I have been taught to say the truth in Canaan."



Rating: 9/10

Recommended if you like: the Giver, Divergent, dystopian, revenge, novels about memory loss

Keep flipping pages,
Lauren 

Monday, August 8, 2016

Author Showcase!

Hello all! We are so happy to be apart of an author showcase and giveaway, planned by YA Bound Book Tours! Keep reading to discover some great books!
"White offers an agile, endearing fantasy that fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will adore. Her description of the call is perfectly realized: "an irresistible melodic pull, as thoughit was a choral magnet and she a metal filing." The narrative's strongest suit is its playfully steamy romance between destroyer and demon: "She held his wrists above his head...[and] nipped the tip of his nose with herteeth." A romping debut that's perfect for teenage fantasy fans." - Kirkus Reviews



Kelly St. Clare has quickly become one of my favorite authors and I am now a fan for life. - AmiesBookReviews.

"This story is wonderful for teenage girls, young women and the all around book lover." - GenuineJenn



Amazon best-selling series

Be careful who you trust, for even the Devil was once an Angel.

INCEPTION is the enthralling first installment in The Marked series. A YA paranormal romance full of atmosphere, supernatural adventure, and jaw-dropping twists that will keep you guessing until the very last page.




2014 National Indie Excellence Award Finalist!

2014 Kindle Book Review Award Semi-Finalist!

What would you do if you lived through the apocalypse? The real fight to survive comes after everyone else is gone.





Fans of The Mortal Instruments will love Emerge: The Awakening, Book 1 of the Urban Fantasy, Emerge Series.

-- "An unhurried but engrossing start for a potentially riveting paranormal series." -Kirkus Reviews





Wolf Moon is an exciting yet unnerving legend of evil witches, deadly demons, and werewolf protectors that will stimulate your senses and leave your heart racing. – Amazon Reviewer






Walker Saga Box Set
Follow Abigail and her friends as they journey through the First World star system. They have an important and dangerous mission: gather the seven half-Walker females. This group of loyal, crazy, determined girls are the only ones who can stop the Seventine before they destroy their worlds. 

Every Entrant is a Winner!
Enter via the giveaway link to go into the draw for the latest Kindle and a $50 Amazon giftcard!
Take home one of the weekly Amazon giftcard prizes!
WALK AWAY NOW with 12 Young Adult books  from  USA Today Bestselling, and Amazon Bestselling Authors.
Enter the giveaway HERE!

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Book Blitz: The Flame Never Dies


Hey everyone! We are super excited to be a part of this pre-release blitz to help spread the word that THE FLAME NEVER DIES, the second book in Rachel Vincent’s The Stars Never Rise series, is releasing on August 16th!

For those that are already caught up on this series, the wait is (almost) finally over! For those that haven’t yet met Nina Kane or discovered the dark and dangerous world she lives in, there’s still time to catch up - and a really sweet deal (details below) that will make you want to move this series to the top of your reading pile!

Scroll down to learn more about THE FLAME NEVER DIES and THE STARS NEVER RISE, the author, Rachel Vincent, and to enter the giveaway for a chance to win a signed hardback set of these two amazing books!

And for even more peeks at the fab content being shared throughout the blitz - shareable quotation graphics, excerpts and an interview - look for other blogger participants now through August 15th on social media #TheFlameNeverDies.

AND...


THE STARS NEVER RISE goes on sale!

In anticipation of the upcoming release of THE FLAME NEVER DIES, the publisher is dropping the price for the eBook version of the first book in the series - THE STARS NEVER RISE! So if you haven’t yet discovered this series, now is the perfect time!

Just head over to your favorite online e-tailer to look for THE STARS NEVER RISE with its newly lowered price or visit one of these online stores - AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | iTUNES | GOOGLE PLAY | KOBO.

Please note that at the time of this post some stores may not yet have updated their sites to the promotional pricing. If they haven’t, be sure to check back for this awesome not-to-be-missed deal!

About THE FLAME NEVER DIES


Title & Series: THE FLAME NEVER DIES (The Stars Never Rise #2)
Author: Rachel Vincent
Release date: August 16, 2016
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 352
Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Description...

For fans of Cassandra Clare and Richelle Mead comes the unputdownable sequel to The Stars Never Rise, a book Rachel Caine, author of the bestselling Morganville Vampires series, called “haunting, unsettling, and eerily beautiful.”

ONE SPARK WILL RISE. Nina Kane was born to be an exorcist. And since uncovering the horrifying truth—that the war against demons is far from over—seventeen-year-old Nina and her pregnant younger sister, Mellie, have been on the run, incinerating the remains of the demon horde as they go.

In the badlands, Nina, Mellie, and Finn, the fugitive and rogue exorcist who saved her life, find allies in a group of freedom fighters. They also face a new threat: Pandemonia, a city full of demons. But this fresh new hell is the least of Nina’s worries. The well of souls ran dry more than a century ago, drained by the demons secretly living among humans, and without a donor soul, Mellie’s child will die within hours of its birth.
Nina isn’t about to let that happen . . . even if it means she has to make the ultimate sacrifice.


The Excerpt

Here's a sneak peek from chapter two of THE FLAME NEVER DIES...

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Ana asked the boy, and I realized there would be no teaching her caution where children were concerned. She had spent five years as a grade-school teacher.

“Tobias.” The boy’s voice was soft and hoarse, as if he’d been crying. His gaze slid from Anabelle to me, and I decided the glazed look in his eyes was from shock.

He reminded me of the kindergartners I’d spent my service hour with every day of my senior year, until the Church had declared me a cancerous wart on mankind’s collective hind end. Tobias could have been any kid in my class, terrified and traumatically orphaned.

We couldn’t leave him alone in the badlands. Yet ours was no life for a kid.

The irony in that thought hit home when my sister waddled past me, one hand on her huge belly. “Melanie,” I called, but she waved off my warning. When I glanced at Finn, he nodded to give me the all clear, the rifle still aimed at the ground. He’d inspected the car from the outside and squatted to peer beneath it, and had found no immediate danger.

Still, Mellie was too pregnant to fight or to flee from sudden danger, so I followed her, ready to pull her out of the path of evil should a demon burst from the bloody car.

“Are you okay, Tobias?” my sister asked, kneeling in front of the child with Anabelle’s help.

For a moment he only stared at her, studying her pale skin and even paler hair. Finally he nodded, his gaze fixated on her stomach, while I tried to calculate the mileage his family must have traveled in that doomed blue car. “You got a baby in there?”

Melanie laughed, and I marveled at the fact that she could find joy where the rest of us saw only tragedy and hardship. “Yes. And I like your name, Tobias.” She laid one hand on her stomach. “Maybe I’ll borrow it if this little one’s a boy.”

Assuming it lived.

Melanie was a tireless optimist, not blind to the dangers of the world, exactly, but not quite concerned enough about them. She refused to think about the overwhelming odds against her child’s survival, and neither she nor Ana had even glanced at the carnage inside that blue car.

And I hadn’t heard her mention Adam, the ill-fated father of her child, in weeks.

Reese pulled the SUV to a stop beside our truck, right in the middle of the road, and the other half of our group poured out of the vehicle. “What the hell?” Footsteps crunched in the dirt behind me, and then Reese and Grayson stopped at my side. She carried a plastic jug and he had a hose wrapped around his massive left arm.

“Looks like the parents are dead in the front seat,” I whispered. “Not sure what happened yet, but Finn hasn’t found any immediate threat.”

“Poor thing!” Grayson cried.

Devi rolled her eyes and scuffed her boot in the dirt on the side of the road. “What the hell are we supposed to do with him?”

“We can’t leave him here.” Maddock threaded his arm through hers, frowning as he watched the little boy. “It’s a miracle he’s still alive. He must not have been here long.”

“We’re not even going to think about taking him with us until we know what killed his parents.” Devi circled the car toward the driver’s side and used one hand to shield the sun from her face while she bent to peer through the window. When she stood a second later, she looked sick. “Nothin’ but blood.”

While the rest of us took a closer look at the car, Grayson, Ana, and Mellie lured Tobias toward the cargo truck with promises of water and chocolate from a box of sweets that had been intended for the general store in New Temperance.

As Devi and Finn had said, the front windows were too caked with blood to show anything at all, and through the rear windshield we could see little more than the outlines of two bodies sitting in the front seats. The trunk door stood open a couple of inches, and when I lifted it, I saw that the narrow center seat had been folded down, creating a small path into the trunk from the backseat of the car. A path just wide enough for a six-year-old.

My stomach twisted at the thought of what Tobias must have witnessed. How could any kid see that much carnage without being psychologically destroyed?

When the child was out of sight behind the cargo truck, Maddock opened the driver’s door while Finn aimed his rifle at the interior just in case. Nothing jumped out at us, but after one glance inside I gasped and stepped back. Finn’s jaw tightened, and even Devi covered her mouth in horror.

The man and woman, still buckled into the front seats of the car, were drenched in blood fresh enough to glisten in the afternoon sunlight. The dashboard, windows, windshield, and floorboard had all been heavily splattered with what could only have been an arterial spray.

Yet even through all the gore, two things were clear.

First, the man and woman in the blue car were not Tobias’s biological parents—their skin was as pale as mine, even accounting for the pallor of recent death. And second, based on the blood and bits of flesh caking their right hands, the couple’s wounds appeared to be self-inflicted.

The man and woman had simply pulled onto the side of the road, then ripped out their own throats. Displaying Content 3 TFND Bold.jpg


About Rachel Vincent


Rachel Vincent is a former English teacher and an eager champion of the Oxford comma. She shares her home in Oklahoma with two cats, two teenagers, and her husband, who’s been her # 1 fan from the start. Rachel is older than she looks and younger than she feels, and she remains convinced that writing about the things that scare her is the cheapest form of therapy—but social media is a close second.



About THE STARS NEVER RISE


Title & Series: THE STARS NEVER RISE (The Stars Never Rise #1)
Author: Rachel Vincent
Release date: June 9, 2015
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 368
Formats: Hardcover, paperback, eBook***

***See above for details on the promotional pricing of the eBook

Description...

Sixteen-year-old Nina Kane should be worrying about her immortal soul, but she's too busy trying to actually survive. Her town's population has been decimated by soul-consuming demons, and souls are in short supply. Watching over her younger sister, Mellie, and scraping together food and money are all that matters. The two of them are a family. They gave up on their deadbeat mom a long time ago.

When Nina discovers that Mellie is keeping a secret that threatens their very existence, she'll do anything to protect her. Because in New Temperance, sins are prosecuted as crimes by the brutal Church and its army of black-robed exorcists. And Mellie's sin has put her in serious trouble.

To keep them both alive, Nina will need to trust Finn, a fugitive with deep green eyes who has already saved her life once and who might just be an exorcist. But what kind of exorcist wears a hoodie?

Wanted by the Church and hunted by dark forces, Nina knows she can't survive on her own. She needs Finn and his group of rogue friends just as much as they need her.


The Giveaway

Courtesy of the author, there is a blitz-wide giveaway for…
  • ONE (1) winner will receive a SIGNED hardback set of THE STARS NEVER RISE + THE FLAME NEVER DIES
Giveaway is US only. Must be 13 or older to enter. Giveaway ends on August 14th at 11:59 PM Pacific.

Enter in the Rafflecopter below...

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