Waiting on Wednesday (17)

Level 2 (The Memory Chronicles #1)
by Lenore Appelhans
publication January 15, 2013 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Since her untimely death the day before her eighteenth birthday, Felicia Ward has been trapped in Level 2, a stark white afterlife located between our world and the next. Along with her fellow prisoners, Felicia passes the endless hours downloading memories and mourning what she’s lost—family, friends, and the boy she loved, Neil.

Then a girl in a neighboring chamber disappears, and nobody but Felicia seems to recall she existed in the first place. Something is obviously very wrong. When Julian—a dangerously charming guy Felicia knew in life—comes to offer Felicia a way out, she learns the truth: a rebellion is brewing to overthrow the Morati, the guardians of Level 2.

Felicia is reluctant to trust Julian, but then he promises what she wants the most—to be with Neil again—if only she’ll join the rebels. Suspended between Heaven and Earth, Felicia finds herself in the center of an age-old struggle between good and evil. As memories from her life come back to haunt her, and as the Morati hunt her down, Felicia will discover it’s not just her own redemption at stake… but the salvation of all mankind.

This sounds so different! Following a girl living in the afterlife and watching an uprising brew? Hello, awesome! And that cover? So pretty, I can't wait to see how it pops out in real life.

What are you waiting on this week? Leave a link!

Moonlight Mayhem Blog Tour Stop #MMBlogTour

To celebrate the release of author, Sherry Soule’s new paranormal novel, MOONLIGHT MAYHEM, take this super fun quiz to see which character BEST suits YOU and score a Kindle or Nook version of the first book in this unforgettable YA series, BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN!

Would you be better friends with Shiloh or an Ariana?

Are you a quirky, romantic witch with supernatural powers?
Or a snarky and outgoing blond with lots of vitality?

Well, they both love to read, have their own sense of style, and have big dreams for the future—but while they share those things, Shiloh’s tall, and Ariana’s not. Ariana’s got major curves and Shiloh’s super skinny. Ariana hearts Christina Aguilera and Shiloh’s all about the Foo Fighters.

Take this quiz and be sure to check the bottom of the post for the details regarding this random giveaway.

1.     You have $50 to spend. Where do you go?

a.      Steve Madden. A girl can never have too many shoes!
b.      Everyday Magick. Stock up on snake blood and eye-of-newt.
c.      Duh! Abercrombie & Fitch
d.      Hot Topic, of course!

2.    It is dinnertime. What are you in the mood for?

a.      Chinese takeout.
b.      Salad and iced tea—please
c.      Fruit and diet soda
d.      BBQ Chicken Pizza. Yum!

3.    The fog in Whispering Pines is extra thick. What keeps you warm?

a.      Bolero jacket with Lucky jeans and Uggs.
b.      Hoodie with my skinny jeans and Doc Martens
c.      The fires of hell—so toasty!
d.      Denim jacket with my black pants and low-top Converse

4.    What is your dream destination?

a.      Hawaii. Warm and tropical. Plus hot guys.
b.      New York. Architecture and culture
c.      Underworld. One way ticket—please!
d.      Paris. The city of romance!

5.    What’s your favorite footwear?

a.      Flip-flops.
b.      Doc Martens
c.      Hoofs
d.      Converse.

6.   Favorite supernatural hunk?

a.     Dean Winchester—heavy sigh!
b.     Stefan Salvatore—so romantic!
c.     Tyler Lockwood—furry and supercute!
d.     Edward Cullen—bite me!

7.    What’s your favorite TV show?

a.      Pretty Little Liars
b.      The Secret Circle
c.      The Lying Game
d.      The Vampire Dairies

8.    Favorite book?

a.      “Descended by Blood” by Angeline Kace
b.      “Revealers” by Amanda Marrone
c.      “Strange Angels” by Lili St. Crow
d.      “Shiver” by Maggie Stiefvater

9.   What’s your dream job?

a.      Hairstylist
b.      Architectect
c.      Ghost Hunter
d.      Personal Shopper

10. What supernatural pet would you like to own?

a.      Phoenix (exotic bird)
b.      Siamese cat (familiar)
c.      Hell Hound
d.      Werewolf

11.  Favorite movie?

a.      Gone With the Wind—I like to channel my inner Scarlett.
b.      The Craft—awesome witch movie!
c.      Insidious—haunted houses are uber scary!
d.     Ginger Snaps—werewolves are wicked cool.

12.  What is the best season?

a.      Spring. Warmer weather and flowers.
b.      Fall. Halloween!
c.      Winter. It gets dark early…
d.      Summer. Yay! No school

13.  What is your favorite color?

a.      Metallic blue. Duh
b.      Fuchsia. I can be a feminist girly-girl and like pink!
c.      Red, the color of blood.
d.      Silver, it’s sparkly and magical.

If you answered...

Mostly a's: You and Ariana need to hang at the mall!
Mostly b's: Shiloh has a haunted house to cleanse—you free tonight?
Mostly c's: Beware—the creatures of the underworld are watching you!
Mostly d's: Ariana and Shiloh are your new BFFs!

Shiloh Ravenwolf thought she was getting used to the supernatural events of Whispering Pines, but the full moon has brought another surge of threats to her coastal town. Ferocious wolves, deadly necromancers, and shambling zombies have descended upon the neighborhood, and Shiloh must gain control of her magical abilities—fast! But it sucks that Shiloh has a crippling fear of the dark. For a demon slayer, this can be an epic problem.

When her classmates are attacked by a mysterious animal and her father is murdered, Shiloh vows vengeance. Forcing her phobias aside, she forms an unlikely coven of supernaturally gifted teens to help her eradicate this menace, but Shiloh’s battling a different monster within herself. She’s struggling not to become the very thing she fights: evil.

But with demon blood inside her—anything can happen…

Moonlight Mayhem is the second novel in the unforgettably epic Spellbound series.

Where you can find Author Sherry Soule onine:

 

Official Blog: http://www.sherrysoule.blogspot.com/
Official Spellbound Series Universe: http://thespellboundseries.blogspot.com/
Twitter @WriterSherry: http://twitter.com/writersherry
Book Trailer/YouTube: http://youtu.be/5uqVXKygvUs 

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11634793-beautifully-broken

Random winner will be picked on June 12th, 2012 and be posted at the top of this quiz, please check back on that day to find out if you’re the lucky winner.

Giveaway details for a Kindle or Nook of BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN:

1.) You must comment with your quiz results

2.) Be a follower of Sherry’s blog

3.) Be a follower of this blog

4.) Follow us both on Twitter (@writersherry & @jarndt08)

5.) Giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY!
Good luck!

Crazy Dangerous Blog Tour

TITLE Crazy Dangerous
AUTHOR Andrew Klavan
PUBLICATION May 1, 2012 by Thomas Nelson
READ May 29 - 31, 2012
BUY IT Amazon / The Book Depository

"You probably want to hear about Jennifer and the demons and how I played chicken with a freight train and—oh yeah—the weird murder and how I found out about it—you're definitely going to want to hear about that. But first, I have to tell you about the stupidest thing I ever did . . ."

Sam Hopkins is bored with his status as a preacher's kid. So when a group of guys notorious for being in trouble offers him friendship, he accepts. Before long, he has several new skills—including hot-wiring cars.

At school, there's an eccentric loner named Jennifer. When Sam defends her from being bullied, she begins to seek him out as her only friend. Her ramblings often seem illogical . . . but then start to contain grains of truth. One leads Sam to discover that one of his new friends has been killed. And then she tells him, "I'm looking for the devil." Sam doesn't know what that means, but he knows it's a matter of life and death that he figure it out.

Everyone else thinks Jennifer is suffering from schizophrenia. But Sam is starting to wonder if there could be something prophetic in her words. Discovering the truth is going to be both crazy and dangerous.

A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Crazy Dangerous starts off with a bang.  When I read the opening page of this book I found myself grinning and knew I was in for a wild ride.  We start off in the mind of Sam Hopkins the local preachers kid in the small town of Sawnee, as he explains how he became the bloodied, mangled, almost dead body on the side of the road.  That's a bang if ever there was one, right? He explains to us how he is sick of being known as the PK (preachers kid) in town and of people acting differently towards him because of it.  So Sam makes a bad decision and he starts running with a group of local thugs to show that he is not just an innocent PK.

Sam Hopkins was a great MC, through him the novel is written in a very informal way, it felt as if I was simply having a conversation with him throughout.  The story had a great flow and I found myself eating up the pages really fast.  He felt real, and I believed the predicament he was facing in trying to get out of the mold he grew up in.  I knew that he wasn't going about any of it the right way, but I totally understood his motives.  Come on, if the characters in stories always did the right thing, they wouldn't be very interesting. 

The POV is shared with Jennifer Sales, a loner from Sam's school who talks in tongues and acts strange.  The parts from her perspective were haunting to say the least.  She is constantly bothered by demons lurking and telling her about terrible things to come.  I was fascinated by Jennifer, every time she talked we got to try to decipher what she was seeing and saying and it really added a depth to the mystery of the story. The whole time you know there is truth in what she is saying, but unravelling where it is coming from made for an intense read.

There are religious undertones here, but I found that they really added to the story in a good way and it didn't feel as if the author was beating me over the head with a bible. All in all I really enjoyed Crazy Dangerous, it's well written and has some great mystery. I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for an Alluring Read.

Award winning author, screenwriter and media commentator Andrew Klavan is the author of such internationally bestselling novels as True Crime, filmed by Clint Eastwood, and Don’t Say A Word, filmed starring Michael Douglas. Andrew has been nominated for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award five times and has won twice. His books have been translated around the world. His latest novel for adults, The Identity Man, has been praised by Nelson Demille as “fast paced, intelligent and thought-provoking; a great read!” Television and radio host Glenn Beck says “Andrew Klavan never disappoints…one of the best illustrations of the power of redemption that I’ve ever read.” His last novel Empire of Lies was about media bias in the age of terror, and topped Amazon.com’s thriller list. Andrew has also published a series of thrillers for young adults, The Homelanders, which follows a patriotic teenager’s battle against jihadists. The books have been optioned to be made into movies by Summit Entertainment, the team behind the mega-successful Twilight film series.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This has been a part of the Crazy Dangerous Blog Tour brought to you by YA Bound. To see all the stops on this tour click here.

Stacking the Shelves (6)

Books mentioned (click title for Goodreads):
Call of the Sea by Rebecca Hart
Wicked Sweet by Mar'ce Merrell
Choker by Elizabeth Woods
Cryer's Cross  by Lisa McMann
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey

eBooks mentioned (click title for Goodreads):
Crewel by Gennifer Albin
This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
Skarlet by Thomas Emson
Death and the Girl Next Door by Darynda Jones

Bloggers mentioned:
Katie from BlookGirl 
Giselle from Xpresso Reads 

Make sure you leave me a link so I can see what you got this week!

Belles Review

TITLE Belles (Belles #1)
AUTHOR Jen Calonita
PUBLICATION April 10, 2012 by Poppy
READ May 28, 2012
BUY IT Amazon / The Book Depository

Fifteen-year-old Isabelle Scott loves her life by the boardwalk on the supposed wrong side of the tracks in North Carolina. But when tragedy strikes, a social worker sends her to live with a long-lost uncle and his preppy privileged family. Isabelle is taken away from everything she’s ever known, and, unfortunately, inserting her into the glamorous lifestyle of Emerald Cove doesn’t go so well. Her cousin Mirabelle Monroe isn’t thrilled to share her life with an outsider, and, in addition to dealing with all the rumors and backstabbing that lurk beneath their classmates’ Southern charm, a secret is unfolding that will change both girls’ lives forever.

Where can I start here? Belles was just so good that I can't even gather my thoughts cohesively.  It was a flashback to some of my all time favourite shows, it had a hint of The OC with a whole lot of 90210.  I could not put this book down, and as soon as it was over I wanted to go back to page 1 and start all over again.  Jen Calonita has put together a contemporary story that is full of laughs, heartbreak and love.

Isabelle Scott is thrust into a foreign world when her grams' dementia takes over and she goes to live in a home.  Isabelle goes from living in Harborside, which is widely known in her new digs as the "ghetto", to Emerald Cove, an upper class suburbia that is driven by wealth.  Watching Izzie get thrown out of her comfort zone and adjust to her new life was written in such a real way, I felt her emotions, and I totally believed them.  It wasn't an easy adjustment and it was really hard on her.  It may have been easier had the people in EC been more welcoming to her, but they were cold and judgemental and it had me feeling so angry! 

We also get to experience the story from Izzie's cousins perspective which serves the story well in showing two viewpoints that couldn't be any more different.  Mira has grown up with a silver spoon in her mouth and she is amongst the popular rich girls at her school. Throughout the story we also get to watch Mira go through changes of her own and really come out of her shell.  The group she has situated herself in is headed by Savannah, and Vannah has the evil "queen bee" role down to a T.

There is a lot to be enjoyed in the pages of Belles, and this one will be taking a coveted space on my favourites list. It's heavy on the high school drama and light on the romance. If you're looking for a refreshing contemporary read that has it's own little twist, than this one is definitely for you. I highly recommend Belles to anyone looking for an Alluring Read.