Cover Madness Giveaway - Round 4!

It's time for the 4th Cover Madness Giveaway! This one is super exciting because Giselle of Xpresso Reads and I have opened it up as a hop and we have gotten a great response. There are over 60 blogs signed up so there are way more opportunities to win this time around. There have been so many awesome covers revealed lately so we are happy that so many people will be featuring them and that readers will have so many chances to win them!

Books Up For Grabs:

As always you can choose a pre-order of one of these titiles OR the first book in one of the series if the cover is a sequel.

*If the title chosen happens to become unavailable at The Book Depository the winner will have to choose another*

Grab the button!

<a href="http://www.alluringreads.com/2013/06/cover-madness-giveaway-round-4.html" title="Alluring Reads"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguiLdbXeJOeXICCPQWWYngf7ik64w_PLFxMDZ4OyhLapiRcEuM45j58Lbfa_sBmFkyEaN7uDLTu4_A9bDnv9Mfz0catvKWyixJRYd7TkIg7ZYvuL3PlYdKYgk6ubc9Ydx7q6MZmiwBB5A/s280/CoverMadnessHopButtonShare2.png" alt="Alluring Reads" style="border:none;" /></a>

What you can win here:

One winner will get their choice of books from the selection above

Giveaway is open internationally as long as The Book Depository ships to you

Giveaway ends July 14, 2013

Fill out the Rafflecopter below to enter:

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Be sure to hop along to the other blogs for more chances to win:

Stacking the Shelves (59)

Hey all!

I didn't do an STS last week because I only got one ebook and this week I didn't add too much to my collection either but here goes anyway:

After reading, and loving, Zom-B I ran out and got the next two books in the series so that I could continue on. I've already read Zom-B Underground and it was really great too! (Read my review of Zom-B and Zom-B Underground)

From the lovely people at Hachette Book Group Canada I got this pretty and I have to say that it sounds sooo good! I can't wait to finally read it.

eBook Haul (click cover for Goodreads):

Huge thank you's go out to Xpresso Book Tours, HBG Canada, author S. Walden and St. Martin's Press this week!

So, what did you get?

Zom-B Underground Review

TITLE Zom-B Underground (Zom-B #2)
AUTHOR Darren Shan
PUBLICATION January 2nd 2013 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
READ June 16 to 17, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

Waking up in a military complex, months after zombies attacked school, B has no memory of the last few months. Life in the UK has turned tough since the outbreak, and B is woven into life- and battle- in the new military regime quickly. But as B learns more about the zombies held in the complex and the scientists keeping them captive, unease settles in. Why exactly was B saved? And is there anyone left in the world to trust?

After devouring Zom-B by Darren Shan I was quick to jump into the second book in the series, Zom-B Underground. The cliffhanger at the end of the first book really left me hanging and I couldn’t wait to find out where the series would go from there. Unfortunately, that cliffhanger makes writing this review spoiler free of the first book utterly impossible, so consider yourself warned. Spoilers for Zom-B ahead!

We catch up with B as she wakes up in an underground complex that appears to be some sort of experimental facility. There are soldiers and scientists everywhere. What comprises this novel is much like what we see in the first, just in a different flavor. In Zom-B we see B struggle with the possibility of inheriting her fathers racist feelings. After the shocking incident where Tyler Bayor was fed to the zombies B swore that she would not become her father and set out on her own. In this one she struggles with the injust way that the zombies are treated. See there are revitaliseds and riveveds in this story. Revitaliseds aren’t your typical zombie. They have regained their consciousness and can function and have thought patterns. B is a revitalised. The reviveds are your typical brain munching zombies who aren’t smart at all. I liked watching B struggle with which side she was on. She was neither zombie nor human so she had so much trouble being OK with how the humans were being so cruel to the zombies.

That inner struggle was really the star in this novel and I loved reading about her feelings but I have to say that the spark in this one wasn’t as strong for me. I did find myself a little bored that we didn’t get any answers and I longed to know what was happening outside of this compound. This is a very small story, we get no idea of the scope of what is happening in the world and we only meet a few characters. We also don’t get any answers as to how this whole zombie apocalypse came to be. The zombie controllers in hoodies do make their appearance in this one but we have no new information on the mutants. Although, I guess we do get to meet their leader and that is one wacky guy. Wow, Mr. Dowling is absolutely frightening and enough to give a girl her fair share of nightmares.

The strongest character here remains B. We do meet some other revitaliseds but I wouldn’t say that they become very developed and they felt very much like secondary characters. I did like the dynamic that the addition of these characters added to B’s unsureness about who she is and how she should react to certain situations. We also meet the doctor who is working on these zom heads (what the revitaliseds call themselves), and two soldiers that are helping out but once again these guys never managed to jump off the page for me. Luckily for the series B remains a strong character in my eyes and is able to carry it along by herself.

We are once again left hanging (I think that will be a running theme in this series) and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Just like the first this is also a super short novel that managed to keep me engaged, but not as enthralled as the first one did. The drawings that we get treated to here and there are great and I found myself staring at them for quite a while before I would continue reading the story. Shan has created a unique zombie apocalypse with it’s fair share of layers & an immense amount of twists and I don’t think this is one to be missed.

A Midsummer Night's Scream Review

TITLE A Midsummer Night's Scream
AUTHOR R.L. Stine
PUBLICATION July 2nd 2013 by Feiwel & Friends
READ June 15 to 16, 2013
SOURCE From the publisher for review

The master of horror takes on the master of theater!

Get ready for laughter to turn into screams in R.L. Stine's re-imagining of Shakespeare's classic romantic comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Everyone knows that Mayhem Manor is cursed. After production on the horror film was stopped due to a series of mysterious deaths, it became a Hollywood legend--which makes it perfect for Claire and her family. If they can successfully finish the film, it should be enough to save their ailing movie studio.

Sure, the old haunted house is creepy, and strange stuff has been happening, but this is Claire's chance. Her chance to become the movie star she's always dreamed and her chance to finally convince her friend Jake that she is girlfriend material. Of course, the fact that Jake thinks he's in love with her best friend, Delia, who is crushing hard on Jake's friend Shawn, who insists on following Claire around, could be a problem, but Claire is sure she can figure it out. After all, the course of true love never did run smooth.

But once shooting starts, "creepy and strange" morph into "bloody and deadly," as the lines between film and reality begin to blur...

Whenever I write a review I try to think of one word that I want to use to describe the book and then I extrapolate from there. Rubbish is the only word that comes to mind when I think about A Midsummer Night’s Scream. This book was terrible. I usually try to be just and fair in my reviews but really there is just nothing good that I have to say about this novel.

The novel kicks off with a group of teenagers getting stranded in the woods when their car breaks down. We watch them set off into the woods in search of help and see them barge into a mansion that is basically a death trap. This stuff was so unbelievable, I mean one girl sits at the dining room table and ends up getting her hand chopped off when a sword fall from the roof, then everyone runs into the kitchen and when they notice the phone doesn’t work they start searching for food. No joke. More of these teens die and then it is revealed that those first few chapters weren’t the real story, they were a movie that the characters in the book were watching. A movie that was made in the 60’s where the teens actually ended up dying so production was stopped. Well guess what, the characters who were watching the movie are rich Beverly Hills kids who are now starring in the remake!

The incredibly fake tone that was set in the beginning is maintained throughout the novel. Everyone in this book does the most stupid things. I mean they remake this movie and, as I’m sure you can guess, people start really dying just as they had in the original. But since the studio is about to go broke they see this movie as their golden ticket and force production through once all the police investigations are over. Now, the people running this production company are the parents of teens who are working on the movie and they keep sending them off to work on this set where people are dying in freak accidents every time they try to shoot a scene. Very believable Mr. Stine.

We are also introduced to a little, hairy, leprechaun looking man very early on in the story. Our MC, Claire, finds him in a trailer and then she keeps stealing his potions. She’s trying to get a love potion to use on a guy that she likes who actually likes her best friend but she keeps stealing the wrong potion. First she steals a hate one and then a Benjamin Button type one but persist she does. I mean wouldn’t you stop when the first potion you stole made the guy you want to love you actually try to punch you? I can’t stress enough how ridiculously stupid every character in this novel was. Her best friend takes the lead in the movie after the original lead dies in a tragic accident. The guys that these girls like must have no brain because they can’t read that these girls like them when the girls are basically hitting them in the face with love sticks. The parent’s are so money hungry that they send their kids off to face probable death multiple times.

I just can’t with this book. The way it was written annoyed the heck out of me. Claire asks the readers questions along the way like she is having a conversation with you instead of you being a reader of a novel. The wrap up of it all is so incredibly far fetched that I found myself laughing when I should have been nervous for the characters. The one thing that I can say that is more on the positive side for this novel is that it did play out in my head like a Goosebumps episode. I think Stine would be better off sticking to MG literature where readers are much more willing to suspend belief to get a fun story. I can’t recommend this novel at all.

Zom-B Review

TITLE Zom-B (Zom-B #1)
AUTHOR Darren Shan
PUBLICATION September 27th 2012 by Simon & Schuster
READ June 15, 2013
SOURCE Purchased

Zom-B is a radical new series about a zombie apocalypse, told in the first person by one of its victims. The series combines classic Shan action with a fiendishly twisting plot and hard-hitting and thought-provoking moral questions dealing with racism, abuse of power and more. This is challenging material, which will captivate existing Shan fans and bring in many new ones. As Darren says, "It's a big, sprawling, vicious tale...a grisly piece of escapism, and a barbed look at the world in which we live. Each book in the series is short, fast-paced and bloody. A high body-count is guaranteed!"

Holy freaking cliffhanger, batman! I am actually mad at this book right now. But, beyond my anger at the shocking last page of this book I have to say that I had an absolute riot reading this novel. It definitely wasn’t what I had expected in that it actually reads a bit like an issue book for the first 75% but rest assured zombie lovers that the last 25% holds a heavy amount of the blood and the guts.

Opening with a scene labelled as “Then” we start out as an 11 year old boy named Brian who wakes up in the middle of the night to find that zombies have taken over his small Ireland town. Once that short scene is over we move into “Now” and we are B who is living in London with an abusive father and submissive mother. B is struggling growing up under the fathers hold. See, not only is he abusive but he is incredibly racist and expects the same to come from his child. We get to see B’s inner turmoil and the struggle that comes along with worrying about growing up just like the father. I was quite surprised to see just how heavily the novel delved into these issues. B’s turmoil really comes to a head on a trip to a war museum where the whole class gets to see a very real picture of the racism that took place in World War II. The viciousness of the racism in the novel could definitely be seen as cruel, unnecessary and shocking to some readers but I have to say that I enjoyed watching B struggle with identity.

There aren’t many characters to come to like in the novel, but I think here that is OK. I still found myself rooting for B once the shit hit the fan, which admittedly doesn’t happen for quite some time. The beginning of the novel is spent watching B run around town with his group of thugs and misbehaving at school. I think this was a good call because I felt like we came to know the relationships and characters really well before they started fighting for their lives. This also led to drawing out a more shocked feeling as to the twists and turns that come later in the novel. For the last 30 pages of the novel I was actually slack jawed by all the twists that came to light.

I think this is a solid beginning to a series that I am really going to like. Shan did such a great job of setting the scene and getting me sucked into B’s life. I really wish there was more that I could say about this one but so much could be seen as spoilers, I even had a really tough time writing what I have because it had to be worded very carefully. At a mere 217 pages this novel packs a unique punch and deals with much more than the blurb lets on. If you are looking for a zombie novel with substance, I think this is a great place to start.

Book Girls Don't Cry - My Reading Habits

Hello folks!

It's Monday and that means I am back with another BGDC post to kick off the week. This week our topic was a suggestion from Siiri of Little Pieces of Imagination (if you haven't checked out her blog yet, please do! This girl is as sweet as they come!)  She wants us to show/talk about our favorite reading habits/places.  I don't really have any favorite munchies to have on hand when I read so I am going to be highlighting the places I read and the devices that I read on.

This is my favorite reading spot! Unfortunately I live in Canada and I only get to use it about 4 months of the year but I take full advantage of it when I can.  My backyard gets a ridiculous amount of sunshine and with the long days I can sometimes be found out there from about 9 AM right until 10 PM off and on.  I have my comfy Martha Stewart wicker furniture and the yard is loaded with toys to keep my brats busy.

On days that are too chilly or when it starts to get dark out I curl up on my couch in my living room with a warm cup of tea or coffee and read there.  This is a photo that I took for Instagram on a stormy night!

This is my reading blanket.  I actually bought this blanket from Chapters so I like to think I am using to serve it's life purpose (if you look closely in the photo above you can see that it makes an appearance there as well.) It is seriously THE most comfortable blanket I have ever touched in my life!

And these are the devices that I read on.  I read primarily on my Kindle but there is nothing that beats an iPad for reading PDF's so that's what I use it for.  The PDF's on it look exactly like a real book and with the app that I use I get to read them in the sepia tone so it looks perfect.  Everything else I read on the Kindle. I do read physical books of course but I do most of my reading on my ereaders.

So that's about it. I always have a cup of coffee or tea with me when I read but I don't usually eat, it just gets in the way of my reading!

So, what about you? What are you favorite reading places/habits?

Also, don't forget that we are always looking for topic suggestions for future posts.

Fill out the suggestion form here!

Cover Reveal: Nomad by J.L. Bryan

Nomad

by J.L. Bryan

to be published July 26 2013 by J.L. Bryan

They took everything: her family, her home, her childhood.

By the age of nineteen, Raven has spent most of her life in the sprawling slums of America, fighting as a rebel against the dictatorship. When the rebellion steals an experimental time-travel device, she travels back five decades to the year 2013. Her plan: assassinate the future dictator when he is still young and vulnerable, long before he comes to power. She must move fast to reshape history, because agents from her own time are on her trail, ready to execute her on sight.

I am not too sure what is going on here but I love the hair and the boots! I love J.L.'s Songs of Magic series so I can't wait to see what he does with this new series! What do you think of the cover for Nomad? How does it sound to you?

J.L.'s Website | Twitter | Blog

J.L. Bryan studied English literature at the University of Georgia and at Oxford, with a focus on English Renaissance and Romantic literature. He also studied screenwriting at UCLA. He lives in Atlanta with his wife Christina, dogs Violet and Tiger Lily, and cats Shadow and Sue.

Giveaway: Undercurrent

I've got something exciting for you today! I figured it would be fun to kick off the weekend with a giveaway so here goes! Thanks to the wonderful people at Random House of Canada I am able to give away one pretty finished copy of Undercurrent by Paul Blackwell. I am super excited for this one because I am always on the lookout for novels with a male MC. Here's a bit more about the book:

Undercurrent

by Paul Blackwell

to be published July 23rd 2013 by HarperTeen

In this suspenseful teen thriller with a touch of the otherworldly, perfect for fans of Neal Shusterman, a boy goes over a waterfall and wakes up to find himself in a twisted version of the life he knew.

A shadowy figure. An intense roar. The sensation of falling—fast.

That’s all Callum Harris remembers from his tumble over the waterfall. But when he wakes up in a hospital bed and finds his best friend trying to kill him, Callum knows something is seriously wrong. Unfortunately for him, the mysteries are just getting started.

Why are his parents acting like he’s some big sports star all of a sudden? And why are all the buildings in town more run-down than Callum remembers? Worst of all...what happened to Callum’s brother? Either Callum has gone seriously crazy or something happened when he went over the falls. Something impossible. Callum needs answers, and now. Because in this twisted new version of the life Callum knew, his former best friend isn’t the only one who wants to see him dead.

Filled with mind-bending suspense and unsettling thrills, Undercurrent is a grippingly paced teen debut that will pull you under and never let go.

This sounds like a really cool alternate reality type book and I can't wait to unravel the mystery myself!  

Giveaway

Up for grabs is one finished copy of Undercurrent by Paul Blackwell

Giveaway is open to Canadian addresses only

Last day to enter is July 5, 2013

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