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600 Follower Winner!!!!

Congratulations!!! And thanks to all that entered

Be on the lookout for new giveaways soon!

Guest Review: Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Title: Texas Gothic
Author: Rosemary Clement-Moore
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Release Date: (July 12, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0385736932
ISBN-13: 978-038573693
Author’s Website
Goodreads   Amazon
Source: Library

Amy Goodnight's family is far from normal. She comes from a line of witches, but tries her best to stay far outside the family business. Her summer gig? Ranch-sitting for her aunt with her wacky but beautiful sister. Only the Goodnight Ranch is even less normal than it normally is. Bodies are being discovered, a ghost is on the prowl, and everywhere she turns, the hot neighbor cowboy is in her face.(Goodreads)

Richard’s Review

I have no clue what “gothic” means as it relates to a book, so I looked it up on Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary.  Here’s what it says:

Goth·ic   adj \ˈgä-thik\
3 often not capitalized : of or relating to a style of fiction characterized by the use of desolate or remote settings and macabre, mysterious, or violent incidents

 
By this definition Texas Gothic is gothic.  I guess my own definition was something much darker, much drearier, much more gruesome and sinister.  And I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book, since I had my definition wrong.
 
I really enjoyed this book. Honestly, a lot more than I thought I would.  The first 80 pages or so had me lost and baffled.  I couldn’t quite figure out who the characters were or what was really going on.  Once things got going, I really got into the story and was hooked.  Though, I wasn’t completely sold on the book until I got past the halfway point.  Up till then I was only partly invested, thinking this was just a cute YA story that happened to involve ghost stories and kitchen magic.
 
Boy was I too quick to judge!  What we really get is a clever, well-crafted paranormal YA novel.  Clement-Moore has a very clever writing style, that mixes deadpan humor and sarcasm to bring a lightness to a very serious plot.  I like that parts had me cringing and on the edge of my seat, and parts had me laughing out loud.  And more often than not, these two mingled together to create one fantastic adventure.
 

“Lila found it,” I said automatically.


“I think she did a spell by accident,” said Phin, because she always had to go there.


His grin turned teasing.  “Do you do a lot of magic spells?”


“No,” I answer emphatically.


“That’s true,” said Phin.  “Amy prefers to operate in a more mundane world than the rest of our family.”


Jennie asked, “So is your family…what do you call it? Wiccan?”


“Good grief, no,” said Phin.  “We’re all Lutherans.”
(page 134-5)

 
I liked that we weren’t dealing with the normal YA teens.  Amy and Phin are in their late teens, college age.  The rest of the main cast are young adults, college kids.  It was also nice that Amy, our heroine, was not helpless or hopeless.  She was strong and independent.  Quite a contrast from other YA female leads.  Another key factor in my admiration for Texas Gothic, that the paranormal is balanced by the normal.  Not everyone is ok with magic, not everyone is convinced of it’s worth.  It made a story that could have been in left field, relatable and real.


The one cliché YA thing was the relationship between Amy and Ben.  At one point, I made the note, “gag me soon.”  It was the normal love-hate-at-first-sight we’re-from-two-different-worlds-and-can’t-be-together hoopla.  I tired quickly of how Amy would describe how amazingly handsome Ben was every time she saw him for (what felt like) the first half of the book. I’m sure chicks swoon over that kind of stuff, but dudes don’t.  I would have understood his attractiveness with one Amy-swooing-over-Ben scene.  Just a little too much for this dude to digest.


But, with it all said and done, Texas Gothic should be added to your TBR pile soon.  I really liked it, and I bet you will, too.

Get to reading,

4 Moons: It doesn’t take magic to love this book!

Reminder :D

*Make sure you stop by Richard’s blog all April long for the Southern Book Tour! There will be reviews, guest post, and great giveaways!!!

Waiting On Wednesday (40)

Enter my 600 Follower Giveaway!!!

"Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at “Breaking the Spine”, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

My Pick this Week!

Title: Ashen Winter

Author: Mike Mullin

Hardcover: 400 pages

Publisher: Tanglewood Press

Release Date: October 16, 2012

ISBN-10: 1933718757

ISBN-13: 978-1933718750

Goodreads   Amazon

It’s been over six months since the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Alex and Darla have been staying with Alex’s relatives, trying to cope with the new reality of the primitive world so vividly portrayed in Ashfall, the first book in this series. It’s also been six months of waiting for Alex’s parents to return from Iowa. Alex and Darla decide they can wait no longer and must retrace their journey into Iowa to find and bring back Alex’s parents to the tenuous safety of Illinois. But the landscape they cross is even more perilous than before, with life-and-death battles for food and power between the remaining communities. When the unthinkable happens, Alex must find new reserves of strength and determination to survive.(Goodreads)

Why I’m Waiting

Y’all, I want to get my hands on this book so bad!!! I was totally blown away by Ashfall. It was one of those dystopian reads that just does not leave you when you have stopped reading it. I can’t wait to see if Alex and Darla are OK, and what they are going to do to find the rest of Alex’s family.

Are you excited about Ashen Winter?

What are you waiting on?

Are You Buying? (March 27, 2012 Edition)

In YA

Title: Fair Coin
Author: E.C. Myers
Hardcover: 250 pages
Publisher: Pyr
Release Date: (March 27, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1616146095
ISBN-13: 978-1616146092
Goodreads   Amazon

Sixteen-year-old Ephraim Scott is horrified when he comes home from school and finds his mother unconscious at the kitchen table, clutching a bottle of pills. The reason for her suicide attempt is even more disturbing: she thought she’d identified Ephraim’s body at the hospital that day.

Among his dead double’s belongings, Ephraim finds a strange coin—a coin that grants wishes when he flips it. With a flick of his thumb, he can turn his alcoholic mother into a model parent and catch the eye of the girl he’s liked since second grade. But the coin doesn’t always change things for the better. And a bad flip can destroy other people’s lives as easily as it rebuilds his own.

The coin could give Ephraim everything he’s ever wanted—if he learns to control its power before his luck runs out. (Goodreads)

Title: Spellcaster
Author: Cara Lynn Shultz
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release Date: March 27, 2012
ISBN-10: 0373210507
ISBN-13: 978-0373210503
Goodreads   Amazon

Finding your eternal soulmate - easy.

Stopping a true-love-hungry evil - not so much…

After breaking a centuries-old romantic curse, Emma Connor is (almost) glad to get back to normal problems. Although...it's not easy dealing with the jealous cliques and gossip that rule her exclusive Upper East Side prep, even for a sixteen-year-old newbie witch. Having the most-wanted boy in school as her eternal soul mate sure helps ease the pain-especially since wealthy, rocker-hot Brendan Salinger is very good at staying irresistibly close....

But something dark and hungry is using Emma and Brendan's deepest fears to reveal damaging secrets and destroy their trust in each other. And Emma's crash course in über-spells may not be enough to keep them safe…or to stop an inhuman force bent on making their unsuspected power its own.(Goodreads)

In Adult

Title: Lover Reborn
Author: J.R. Ward
Hardcover: 592 pages
Publisher: NAL Hardcover
Release Date: March 27, 2012
ISBN-10: 0451235843
ISBN-13: 978-0451235848
Goodreads   Amazon

In the darkest corners of the night in Caldwell, New York, a conflict like no other rages. The city is home to a band of brothers born to defend their race: the warrior vampires of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.

Now back in the Brotherhood - and unrecognisable as the vampire leader he once was - Tohrment is physically emaciated and heartbroken beyond despair. When he begins to see his beloved in his dreams - trapped in a cold, isolating netherworld - Tohr turns to a self-serving fallen angel in hopes of saving the one he has lost. When he's told he must learn to love another to free his former mate, Tohr knows they are all doomed . . .

Except then a female with a shadowed history begins to get through to him. Against the backdrop of the raging war with the lessers, and with a new clan of vampires vying for the Blind King's throne, Tohr struggles between the buried past, and a very hot, passion-filled future . . . but can his heart let go and set all of them free?(Goodreads)

Title: Body, Inc. 
Author: Alen Dean Foster
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: March 27, 2012
ISBN-10: 0345511999
ISBN-13: 978-0345511997
Goodreads   Amazon

New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster has always been on the cutting-edge of science fiction. In Body, Inc., he creates a tomorrow where genetic manipulation has become ubiquitous, and the very meaning of what it is to be human is undergoing drastic transformation.

In a world deeply wounded by centuries of environmental damage, two unlikely souls join forces: Dr. Ingrid Seastrom has stumbled into a mystery involving quantum-entangled nanoscale implants—a mystery that just may kill her. Whispr is a thief and murderer whose radical body modifications have left him so thin he is all but two-dimensional. Whispr has found a silver data-storage thread, a technology that will make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. He is also going mad with longing for Dr. Ingrid Seastrom. Their quest to learn the secrets of the implant and the thread—which may well be the same secret—has led them to the South African Economic Combine, otherwise known as SAEC. Or, less respectfully, SICK.  SICK, it seems, has the answers.

Unfortunately, SICK has also got Napun Molé, a cold-blooded assassin whose genetic enhancements make him the equivalent of a small army. Molé has already missed one chance to kill Ingrid and Whispr and now he has followed them to South Africa. This time, he is not only going to succeed, he is going to make them suffer.(Goodreads)

Title: Sacrificial Magic
Author: Staci Kane
Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: March 27, 2012
ISBN-10: 034552750X
ISBN-13: 978-0345527509
Goodreads   Amazon

When Chess Putnam is ordered by an infamous crime boss—who also happens to be her drug dealer—to use her powers as a witch to solve a grisly murder involving dark magic, she knows she must rise to the challenge. Adding to the intensity: Chess’s boyfriend, Terrible, doesn’t trust her, and Lex, the son of a rival crime lord, is trying to reignite the sparks between him and Chess.

Plus there’s the little matter of Chess’s real job as a ghost hunter for the Church of Real Truth, investigating reports of a haunting at a school in the heart of Downside. Someone seems to be taking a crash course in summoning the dead—and if Chess doesn’t watch her back, she may soon be joining their ranks.

As Chess is drawn into a shadowy world of twisted secrets and dark violence, it soon becomes clear that she’s not going to emerge from its depths without making the ultimate sacrifice.(Goodreads)

Title: Sin of the Son
Author: Linda Poitevin
Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Ace
Release Date: March 27, 2012
ISBN-10: 1937007375
ISBN-13: 978-1937007379
Goodreads   Amazon

When homicide detective Alexandra Jarvis sees a photo of Seth Benjamin on a police bulletin, she knows that Heaven's plan to halt Armageddon has gone terribly wrong. As the only mortal who knows of Seth's true nature, only she can save him. Aramael was a hunter of Fallen Angels until a traitor forced him into earthly exile. Now, with no powers and only a faint memory of Alex, his mortal soulmate, he will stop at nothing to redeem himself-even if it means destroying Seth in the name of the Creator...(Goodreads)

Title: Wicked as They Come
Author: Delilah S. Dawson
Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Pocket Books
Release Date: March 27, 2012
ISBN-10: 1451657889
ISBN-13: 978-1451657883
Goodreads   Amazon

Have you ever heard of a Bludman? They’re rather like you and me—only more fabulous, immortal, and mostly indestructible. (They’re also very good kissers.)

Delilah S. Dawson’s darkly tempting debut drops her unsuspecting heroine into a strange faraway land for a romantic adventure that’s part paranormal, part steampunk . . . and completely irresistible.

When Tish Everett forces open the ruby locket she finds at an estate sale, she has no idea that a deliciously rakish Bludman has cast a spell just for her. She wakes up in a surreal world, where Criminy Stain, the dashing proprietor of a magical traveling circus, curiously awaits. At Criminy’s electric touch, Tish glimpses a tantalizing future, but she also foresees her ultimate doom. Before she can decide whether to risk her fate with the charming daredevil, the locket disappears, and with it, her only chance to return home. Tish and Criminy battle roaring sea monsters and thundering bludmares, vengeful ghosts and crooked Coppers in a treacherous race to recover the necklace from the evil Blud-hating Magistrate. But if they succeed, will Tish forsake her fanged suitor and return to her normal life, or will she take a chance on an unpredictable but dangerous destiny with the Bludman she’s coming to love?(Goodreads)

So… do you plan on snatching any of these books up today? Is anything new to you?

Happy Bookday!!!
To all the author that have books out this week.

My Day Late In My Mailbox

Have you entered my 600 Follower Giveaway?!?!

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren and is a post for bloggers to share what books they've received to review, bought, won, borrowed or were gifted.

From NetGalley

Thanks to Harlequin Teen!

I loved The Girl in the Steel Corset! I am so excited to read this!!!

Free from Amazon

Don’t you love finding free books:)

Free from Goodreads eBooks

This has had some pretty good reviews.

From the Library

It’s sad to me that I reached the end of the series…But I totally enjoyed it:)

What did you get in your mailbox?

Sexy Saturday Review: Lover Unleashed by J.R. Ward, Read by Jim Frangione

Have You Entered My 600 Follower Giveaway?!?!

Title: Lover Unleashed

Author: J.R. Ward

Read By: Jim Frangione

Audible Audio Edition

Listening Length: 18 hours and 37 minutes 

Version: Unabridged

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Audible.com Release Date: March 29, 2011

ASIN: B004U8N8BG

Author’s Website

Source: Library

Payne, twin sister of Vishous, is cut from the same dark, warrior cloth as her brother: A fighter by nature, and a maverick when it comes to the traditional role of Chosen females, there is no place for her on the Far Side… and no role for her on the front lines of the war, either.

When she suffers a paralyzing injury, human surgeon Dr. Manuel Manello is called in to treat her as only he can- and he soon gets sucked into her dangerous, secret world. Although he never before believed in things that go bump in the night- like vampires- he finds himself more than willing to be seduced by the powerful female who marks both his body and his soul.

As the two find so much more than an erotic connection, the human and vampire worlds collide … just as a centuries old score catches up with Payne and puts both her love and her life in deadly jeopardy. (Goodreads)

Review

I actually listened to Lover Unleashed months ago but have been saving the review to closer to the release of the next book in the series. Well guess what?!?! The next book in the series, Lover Reborn, will be out March 27th!!! So lets get on with talking about Lover Unleashed.

I am a long time fan of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series but I have always read the books, this was my first time listening to one of the BDB book. I thought the narrator Jim Frangione did a great job of capturing the story and getting into the characters. But having said that I don’t know that I will be listening to any of the other BDB books. Why you ask…well I just had to be to gosh darn patient! If you are fans of the series then you know how it is when a new book comes out. You want to find a quiet place and be consumed by your BDB boys:) Am I right?!?!

I have never been a huge fan of  Manny but that changed in Lover Unleashed. I loved him and Payne together. It was just fun watching him stand up to V and interacting with Butch. I thought he took the BDB world in stride.

I have always liked Payne. Ever since she first came on the scene and helped Wrath through his blindness to become a better king I have wondered when she would get to come over the veil. I didn’t know if I would like Payne and Manny together because I have always thought of Payne as so strong but it really worked for me.

V broke my heart all over again with all that he was going through with his past. And dang if I did not fall completely in love with Butch all over again for being everything V needed him to be. I love those brothers!!!

There were new characters introduced in Lover Unleashed: The Band of Bastards. Will they they end up joining the brothers at some point? I didn’t know. I did get the feeling throughout this installment that it was setup for what was to come.

I have done my best to make this as non-spoilery as possible. If you are not into this series yet then go get you a copy of Dark Lover Find a quiet place to fall in love with the Brothers just like so many of my bookish friends have. This series is action packed, character driven and oh so HOT! 

Happy Reading,

Awesome! Reread worthy.

Recommended For

Adult: For scorching hot sex scenes, language, and violence.

Other Books in this Series

Out 3/27/2012

Click cover images to go to Goodreads page.

The Hunger Games Mini Movie Review & Midnight Show Fun

Let me start this review out by saying, like most people who go into a movie that comes from a book they love, I have a hard time separating the two. Having said that I went into The Hunger Games movie knowing it was not going to be what I had pictured in my head as I read The Hunger Games the book.

I thought all the costuming and special effects were done well, especially when it came to the room that was running the game. That was amazing!

I was surprised that I ended up liking all the actors that played my favorite characters from the book. I really liked Peeta, played by Josh Hutcherson, I thought he did an amazing job. I also thought Caesar Flickerman, played by Stanley Tucci, was awesome.

I loved everything with Peeta and Katniss together on camera! I honestly did not think they where going to work for me but they totally did.

My big problem with the movie was this: Lack of emotion. Yes, the Reaping scene was well done, and just after when Katniss has to say goodbye to her family I did feel for her and her family. But, I felt like everything was so rushed after that I had no time to digest or care much about it. Even the deaths where to quick. I would have liked a lot more development.

Now don’t get me wrong I enjoyed this movie. I think anyone can appreciate The Hunger Game, if you have read the book or not. In fact from the group I was with, the guy that had not read the book enjoyed it the most.

Happy Watching,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before The Movie Fun

This is actually one of my sisters. Is this shirt she made not awesome!!! She already has people at her school placing orders:)

   

I thought this girl did an awesome job making her bracelet. She said it only took her about an hour.

       

Lots people wanted to make sure everyone knew who's teem they where on.

 

Our leading couple. How awesome do they look!

Seneca Crane! How great does he look?!?!

These guys went all out!

I loved seeing all the different t-shirts and costumes. Some people really got into it and made the midnight premier so much more fun. 

Have you been?

Did you have a good time?