Thursday 19 June 2014

11:09 - 1 comment

Book Review: City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6)
Title: City of Heavenly Fire
Author: Cassandra Clare
Release Date: May 27th, 2014
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry

Buy the Book: 
Chapters - Amazon - Barnes & Noble


In this dazzling and long-awaited conclusion to the acclaimed Mortal Instruments series, Clary and her friends fight the greatest evil they have ever faced: Clary's own brother.

Sebastian Morgenstern is on the move, systematically turning Shadowhunter against Shadowhunter. Bearing the Infernal Cup, he transforms Shadowhunters into creatures out of nightmare, tearing apart families and lovers as the ranks of his Endarkened army swell.

The embattled Shadowhunters withdraw to Idris - but not even the famed demon towers of Alicante can keep Sebastian at bay. And with the Nephilim trapped in Idris, who will guard the world against demons?

When one of the greatest betrayals the Nephilim have ever known is revealed, Clary, Jace, Isabelle, Simon, and Alec must flee - even if their journey takes them deep into the demon realms, where no Shadowhunter has set foot before, and from which no human being has ever returned...

Love will be sacrificed and lives lost in the terrible battle for the fate of the word in the thrilling final installment of the classic urban fantasy series The Mortal Instruments!

Tuesday 3 June 2014

Thursday 15 May 2014

09:42 - 1 comment

Book Review: Second Star by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

Second Star
Title: Second Star
Author: Alyssa B. Sheinmel
Release Date: May 13th, 2014
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

Buy the Book: 
Chapters - Amazon - Barnes & Noble


A twisty story about love, loss, and lies, this contemporary oceanside adventure is tinged with a touch of dark magic as it follows seventeen-year-old Wendy Darling on a search for her missing surfer brothers. Wendy’s journey leads her to a mysterious hidden cove inhabited by a tribe of young renegade surfers, most of them runaways like her brothers. Wendy is instantly drawn to the cove’s charismatic leader, Pete, but her search also points her toward Pete's nemesis, the drug-dealing Jas. Enigmatic, dangerous, and handsome, Jas pulls Wendy in even as she's falling hard for Pete. A radical reinvention of a classic, Second Star is an irresistible summer romance about two young men who have yet to grow up--and the troubled beauty trapped between them.

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Monday 31 March 2014

Friday 28 March 2014

Tuesday 25 March 2014

Saturday 22 March 2014

Thursday 20 March 2014

Tuesday 18 March 2014

Monday 17 March 2014

Wednesday 12 March 2014

Tuesday 11 March 2014

Saturday 8 March 2014

Thursday 6 March 2014

Monday 3 March 2014

Tuesday 25 February 2014

Friday 21 February 2014

Tuesday 18 February 2014

Saturday 15 February 2014

Friday 14 February 2014

Thursday 13 February 2014

Wednesday 12 February 2014

Tuesday 11 February 2014

Saturday 8 February 2014

Thursday 6 February 2014

Tuesday 4 February 2014

Monday 3 February 2014

Saturday 1 February 2014

Tuesday 28 January 2014

Monday 27 January 2014

20:37 - 2 comments

New Meme Trial..Teaser Tuesdays!


Much like Feature & Follow Fridays this week, I wanted to try a new weekly event called Teaser Tuesdays (hosted by MizB at Should be Reading).  How it works is you open your current read, flip to a random page, and share a quotes from two different pages.  Sounds like fun!  Here's my teaser for this week...

Friday 24 January 2014

Thursday 23 January 2014

Wednesday 22 January 2014

09:33 - 1 comment

Of Sea and Stone Cover Reveal!

BOOK & AUTHOR INFO:


Of Sea and Stone by Kate Avery Ellison
Publication date: February 2014
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Synopsis:
All her life, clever Aemi has been a slave in the Village of the Rocks, a place where the sea and sky meet. She’s heard the stories about the fabled People of the Sea, a people who possess unimaginable technology who live below the waves in the dark, secret places of the ocean. But she never dreamed those stories were true.

Monday 20 January 2014

Sunday 19 January 2014

Friday 17 January 2014

Tuesday 14 January 2014

09:25 - 2 comments

Top Ten Tuesdays: 2014 Debuts I'm Excited For


This week on "Top Ten Tuesdays" (hosted by The Broke and the Bookish) the topic is 2014 debuts I'm excited for!

1. Defy by Sarah B. Larson

Defy (Defy, #1)

2. Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

Cruel Beauty

3. The Story of Owen by E. K Johnston

The Story of Owen

4. Such Sweet Sorry by Jenny Trout

Such Sweet Sorrow

5. Alienated by Melissa Landers

Alienated (Alienated, #1)

6. Half Bad by Sally Green

Half Bad (Half Life, #1)

7. The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings

The Murder Complex (The Murder Complex, #1)

8. Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen  

Stolen Songbird (The Malediction Trilogy, #1)

9. Landry Park by Bethany Hagen

Landry Park (Landry Park, #1)

10. Nil by Lynne Matson

Nil


There is my list for this week!  Do you have any debuts that you're looking forward to reading this year?

Subscribe or come back tomorrow for this weeks edition of "Waiting on Wednesday"!

Stay nerdy,
Julia

Monday 13 January 2014

09:18 - No comments

Book Review: The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant by Joanna Wiebe


The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant (V, #1)

Title: The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant
Author: Joanna Wiebe
Release Date: January 2nd, 2014
Publisher: BenBella Books

Buy the Book: Chapters | Amazon | Barnes & Noble


So many secrets for such a small island. From the moment Anne Merchant arrives at Cania Christy, a boarding school for the world’s wealthiest teens, the hushed truths of this strange, unfamiliar land begin calling to her—sometimes as lulling drumbeats in the night, sometimes as piercing shrieks.

One by one, unanswered questions rise. No one will tell her why a line is painted across the island or why she is forbidden to cross it. Her every move—even her performance at the school dance—is graded as part of a competition to become valedictorian, a title that brings rewards no one will talk about. And Anne discovers that the parents of her peers surrender million-dollar possessions to enroll their kids in Cania Christy, leaving her to wonder what her lowly funeral director father could have paid to get her in… and why.

As a beautiful senior struggles to help Anne make sense of this cloak-and-dagger world without breaking the rules that bind him, she must summon the courage to face the impossible truth—and change it—before she and everyone she loves is destroyed by it.

(I received an advance copy from BenBella Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Unfortunately, a little over halfway through, I stopped reading this book. Even though I didn’t finish reading it, I thought I would write a short review based on what I read and explain why I stopped reading.

When I first picked up The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant, I was intrigued by the setting of an exclusive boarding school. I am drawn to books with that kind of environment because in my mind it influences what troubles are going to be set upon the characters, such as the presence of ghosts, the competition for highest grades, the ability of supernatural powers and so on. One of the reasons why I didn’t finish this book is that I didn’t understand what this school was centered on or what it was enforcing. All I really understood was that almost everyone was competing for a scholarship in a way that I had difficulty wrapping my head around.

Basically, all new students are assigned a mentor on their first day at the boarding school. Their new mentor then “looks deep into their soul” just hours after meeting them and produces a skill that they think suits them most. The students must act by the skill they have been assigned and do so with such ferocity that, at the end of the year, whoever embodies it most wins the title of valedictorian and a guaranteed scholarship to the school of his or her choice. In the case of the protagonist, Anne Merchant, the first skill that her mentor comes up with is “seduction”. Then after some arguing on her part, the next thing that her mentor chooses, and what ends up being her skill for the year, is basically “looking deeper into things”. Which, as I kept reading, I realized she embodies as eavesdropping. It is stated at the beginning of the book that she was at the top of her class and was regarded as quite intelligent at her old school. However, this does not seem to be validated at her new school.

I was actually disappointed when I read that part because up to that point I was enjoying it. I thought that some of the characters had intriguing personalities and I really valued that Anne had been trying her hardest to set herself up for a university scholarship. She seems like a smart, interesting, and independent girl. I just thought that this was overruled as the story progressed. Perhaps this changes or is addressed after I stopped reading. Unfortunately, this book wasn’t for me.


Because I didn't finish The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant, I'm not going to give it a final rating.

Is The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant on your to-read list this winter?

Subscribe or check back tomorrow for "Top Ten Tuesdays"!

Stay nerdy,
Julia

Friday 10 January 2014

22:45 - 4 comments

Stacking the Shelves (Week 10)

STSmall

"Stacking the Shelves" is a weekly event hosted by Tynga's Reviews that highlights which books are new on ones bookshelf for that week.  Here is what this week has brought to mine!

Backward Compatible: A Geek Love StoryThe Mark of the Dragonfly
Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #2)I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban


Backwards Compatible by Sarah Daltry & Pete Clark (received from SDE Press, LLC through NetGalley) Review to come! 

The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson (received from Random House Children's through NetGalley) Review to come! 

Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor (purchased)

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai (purchased)

What's new on your shelf this week?

Subscribe or check back next week for my review on The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant by Joanna Wiebe on Monday.

Stay nerdy,
Julia

Wednesday 8 January 2014

16:16 - No comments

Book Blitz: Darkness Watching by Emma L. Adams

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Darkness Watching
by Emma L Adams
Release Date: 10th October 2013
Publisher: Curiosity Quills
Genre: Urban fantasy/paranormal
Target Audience: Upper YA/New Adult

Eighteen-year-old Ashlyn is one interview away from her future when she first sees the demons. She thinks she's losing her mind, but the truth is far more frightening: she can see into the Darkworld, the home of spirits– and the darkness is staring back.

Desperate to escape the demons, Ash accepts a place at a university in the small town of Blackstone, in the middle of nowhere - little knowing that it isn't coincidence that led her there but the pull of the Venantium, the sorcerers who maintain the barrier keeping demons from crossing from the Darkworld into our own world.


All-night parties, new friendships and a life without rules or limits are all part of the package of student life - but demons never give up, and their focus on Ash has attracted the attention of every sorcerer in the area. Ash is soon caught between her new life and a group of other students with a connection to the Darkworld, who could offer the answers she's looking for. The demons want something from her, and someone is determined to kill her before she can find out what it is. 

In a world where darkness lurks beneath the surface, not everyone is what they appear to be...
If you are a blogger and would like to request a review copy of Darkness Watching, click HERE!

Read an excerpt!

So much for being the amazing Oxford candidate.
No dark spaces waited for us around the assembly hall this time. Mr Darton stood barring the door to make sure no one sneaked in to get a look at the exam papers. I raced through quotations in my head, praying to the gods of exams that the right question would come up. Avoiding a panic attack would be nice, too.
Breathe. I didn't want a repeat of the interview. The word fiasco came to mind when I thought of the day after the demons came, when I'd sat before the stereotypically grey-bearded distinguished professor of literature and, intelligently, said, "I like, um, reading."
Thirty minutes of nonsensical rambling later, I'd left the interview room and walked right through a dark space that looked as though it had been torn out of the universe. A patch of air, densely black yet somehow transparent, so I could see through to the other side, where people walked along the corridor, talking, completely oblivious to the darkness.
Only I could see it.
And before I could even gather my thoughts, a pair of violet eyes stated at me from the blackness.
I cracked. I screamed my head off and ran.
"I think you made quite an impression," said Mum, after I'd calmed down. "Not everyone runs screaming out of their interview."
"Ha-freaking-ha," I said sourly. Hardly the impression I'd hoped for―Ashlyn the lunatic as opposed to Ashlyn the knowledgeable literary critic.
The next day, my parents frog-marched me to the doctor's for anxiety medication.
Like medication would make a difference. No prescribed medicine could cure fear of the dark. Or demons.
The fear never really went away, for all that I treated the demons like a minor annoyance. I'd chosen that over giving into insanity and locking myself away. Slowly, I'd adjusted to their staring eyes, like people who went on those reality TV shows must adjust to cameras being there all the time.
A reality TV show is a pretty good comparison. The demons watched me like a fascinating performance, just for them. Everywhere: at school, in the street, at the shops. Dark shapes would appear and I'd be greeted by cold violet eyes and a chill that went bone-deep. But they'd never tried to harm me. Hell, I didn't even know if they could. They just watched me curiously, as if my seeing them astonished them as much as it did me. After a while, I grew sick of it and stared back. I was bravest in my room, where they couldn't get to me. Sometimes, when I was alone in the house, I felt that prickling sensation along my spine and just knew that when I looked up, I'd see one, outside my window. But they never came inside, oddly enough; it contradicted their other behaviour because they had no physical substance, if the OED experiment proved anything. I assumed they could materialise anywhere at all. They appeared inside the school building all the time. Strange that they left my house alone, but not something to complain about. The idea of creepy eyes watching me in the shower―well, I'd almost rather have one of those nightmares.
Sometimes, like today, I spoke to them, like a five-year-old conversing with imaginary friends. Albeit vicious ones who refused to let me be. Insulting them brought no satisfaction; it was like swearing at my laptop when it stalled, like hurling insults at the wind.
The clock's ticking brought me back to the present. Shit, how do I have only five minutes left? I pushed my hand to its limits, pen racing down the page, but the stubborn hand of the clock ticked on relentlessly. I wished it would stop.
The clock's hand stopped.
Holy shit.
I glanced from side to side. Did I do that? Impossible.
The old school's clock broke down, that was all. People couldn't do things like that.
People couldn't.
I looked around frantically, searching for any sign of a demon. Any shadow could be a dark space, right?
Don't be an idiot―finish your answer!
I scribbled the end to my final paragraph, splattering ink everywhere.
A minute later, Mr Darton said to our deputy head, Mrs Cathers, "I make it half past the hour. Do you?"
The two exchanged whispers. I heard the clock mentioned. I can't have done that. There's only so much weird I can see in one day.

Reviews of DARKNESS WATCHING:
"Emma is an amazing writer. She has become one of my favorites. I couldn’t put Darkness Watching down." - Diane at A Creative Mind

"Darkness Watching provides an original world that is fully complete and from a teens POV. It was dark and entertaining and sometimes teen books don’t go full out, this one did. The world building was truly strong in this novel." - Lexi at 
Book Bliss

"Like good books should, Darkness Watching left me pondering the story after I'd finished reading AND left me wanting more. Adams built a strong world for readers to be immersed. But the regular world retained full realism. Normal every day teen situations felt completely believable." - Erin at 
Erin Albert Books

I have to say, I didn’t see the ending coming! ... the final showdown left me speechless (You will have to read it!)" - Julia at Never Judge a Book by its Movie

"This was entertaining from the start...I didn’t want to put it down, and fans of urban fantasies I think will enjoy this. Darkness Watching was definitely worth the read." - Jenea at Books Live Forever

"This book is unique, fun and interesting. I kept wondering what was going to happen next...I felt that this book was well written and It was hard to put this book down once I started. " -Jessica at Eat Sleep Read

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About the Author
Emma spent her childhood creating imaginary worlds to compensate for a disappointingly average reality, so it was probably inevitable that she ended up writing fantasy and paranormal for young adults. She was born in Birmingham, UK, which she fled at the first opportunity to study English Literature at Lancaster University. In her three years at Lancaster, she hiked up mountains, skydived in Australia, and endured a traumatic episode involving a swarm of bees in the Costa Rican jungle. She also wrote various novels and short stories. These included her first publication, a rather bleak dystopian piece, and a disturbing story about a homicidal duck (which she hopes will never see the light of day).

Now a reluctant graduate, she can usually be found in front of her writing desk, creating weird and wonderful alternative worlds. Her debut novel The Puppet Spell, published in January 2013 by Rowanvale Books, is a fantasy tale for young adults and the young at heart, inspired by her lifelong love of the fantastical, mythology, and video games. Emma also writes supernatural fantasy novels for older teens and adults. Her next book, Darkness Watching, is the first in the upper-YA/New Adult Darkworld series, and was published in October 2013 by Curiosity Quills Press.

Author Links:



***GIVEAWAY***
$10 Amazon gift card (INT)
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Blitz Organized by:
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Is Darkness Watching on your to-read shelf? Its definitely on mine! Have you read it already? If so, what did you think? Let me know in the comments below.

Subscribe or check back tomorrow for a cover reveal!

Stay nerdy,
Julia