It’s Monday! What are you Reading? (2)

"It's Monday! What are you reading?" is a fun meme hosted by Sheila @ Book Journey. This is where we share the books we have read last week and our reading plans for this week.

What I read last week

Click cover image to go to Goodreads page.

How do you like the new cover for Monstrous Beauty? The review for this should be up Thursday. This was good y’all!!!

Reviews coming this Week

Click cover image to go to Goodreads page.

This review will be up Wednesday. Loved this book!

What I’m Reading this Week

Click cover image to go to Goodreads page.

I tried to get to this last week, but it didn’t happen. I am starting this today!

Click cover image to go to Goodreads page.

I have read so many mixed things about this sequel. I’m excited to see for myself.

I hope to get to this

Click cover image to go to Goodreads page.

If you are a BDB fan, I really don’t need to say anything about this… And, if you are not a fan, well there is just no way for you to understand my need to get to this book;)

Other News

My Blogiversary Giveaway is going on! Don’t forget to ENTER.

I think I may start doing vlogs with these post.

Can’t wait to hear of your plans for the week.
Happy Reading,

Sexy Saturday post: Have you read Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James?

Yesterday my husband went to Barnes and Noble on his lunch break. As he was there he saw a cart filled up high with books waiting to be put out. Well, of course he went over to see what they were, and what did he find? Two titles: Fifty Shades of Grey, and Fifty Shades Darker.

Richie’s question to me was: “Do you think everyone has gotten a bit obsessed?”

My answer: Have you heard there in going to be a movie? And why don’t you read it and find out.

Click cover to go to Goodreads page.

I read Fifty Shades of Grey a few weeks ago and really liked it. In fact right after reading Fifty Shades of Grey I bought the rest of the series and read it all in just a few days. Yes, I know I am late in all the hype. What actually got me to reading the books by EL James were negative reviews on Goodreads. One even saying that there is something wrong with people who liked Fifty Shades of Grey…Well, once I read that I had to read it right?!?!

For those of you who have not read this series, here are some questions you may have:

What kept you from reading this to start with?

I all honesty, the cover. Yep, I’m a cover snob and the tie just did not catch me… Now after reading FSoG I know that THAT tie is the perfect cover.

Is there really a graphic BDSM relationship between the main characters?

Yes, that is one of the reasons going into this series I was worried. But, there is an actual storyline in the book and having read romance, and paranormal romance a lot in the past I am no book prude. I said a few weeks ago when I read this it may not be for everyone because it is graphic. For me, this was a very readable story. I cared enough about the characters to have to know what was going to happen to them from one book to the next.

Did you know that this was originally a fanfiction?

Yes, I did know that going into it. No, I did not feel like I was reading about Edward and Bella.

My questions to you:

Have you jumped on the bandwagon? Have you read this series?

Are you OK with sex in books? or do you avoid those books like the plague?

Everyone from Ellen to the ladies from The View are talking about this book. Did you know Fifty Shades of Grey is going to be a movie?

How on earth do you think they will go about making the Fifty Shades of Grey movie?

What do you think it will end up being rated?

Who would you want in the roles?!?!

I’m excited to here back from you on this one:)

Happy reading,

Follow Friday (41)

Enter My Blogiversary Giveaway!!!

Welcome to Follow Me Friday Hosted By Parajunkee.com and Alisoncanread.com

This Weeks Question:

Have you ever had a character that disappointed you? One you "fell in love" with and then "broke up" with later on in a series or stand alone book? Tell us about him or her.

First

Not any one character…just the whole series. Why, there is just to much of it. I think I am just over that whole thing. Especially stalker Edward!

Second

 

Katniss Everdeen in this last book just was not the heroine she was in the first two books. It was like she was a different character all together.

Can’t wait to read your answers!

Happy hopping,

Review: On The Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves

About two weeks ago I guest posted over at Richard’s blog, Bound & Determined to Find a Good Read (My husbands blog) with the review of this awesome book. I wanted to share it on the Spine as well and let you know there is still a giveaway going for a signed copy of On The Island, along with five other giveaways. So head over to Richard’s Southern Book Tour when you are done here and enter to win some books. You can tell him his awesome wife sent you;) 

Title: On the Island
Author: Tracey Garvis-Graves
Publisher: CreateSpace
Release Date: March 14, 2012
ISBN-10: 1466363215
ISBN-13: 978-1466363212
Source: Self Purchase
Goodreads   Amazon

When thirty-year-old English teacher Anna Emerson is offered a job tutoring T.J. Callahan at his family's summer rental in the Maldives, she accepts without hesitation; a working vacation on a tropical island trumps the library any day. T.J. Callahan has no desire to leave town, not that anyone asked him. He's almost seventeen and if having cancer wasn't bad enough, now he has to spend his first summer in remission with his family - and a stack of overdue assignments - instead of his friends. Anna and T.J. are en route to join T.J.'s family in the Maldives when the pilot of their seaplane suffers a fatal heart attack and crash-lands in the Indian Ocean. Adrift in shark-infested waters, their life jackets keep them afloat until they make it to the shore of an uninhabited island. Now Anna and T.J. just want to survive and they must work together to obtain water, food, fire, and shelter. Their basic needs might be met but as the days turn to weeks, and then months, the castaways encounter plenty of other obstacles, including violent tropical storms, the many dangers lurking in the sea, and the possibility that T.J.'s cancer could return. As T.J. celebrates yet another birthday on the island, Anna begins to wonder if the biggest challenge of all might be living with a boy who is gradually becoming a man.(Goodreads)

Review

First let me start out by saying like many of you after reading the synopsis I was like whoa, how is this story going to work? The woman is thirty and the boy is ALMOST seventeen! How am I going to be OK with that? Then I read Ashley’s awesome review at Into the Hall of Books and was put a bit at ease. So I decided to give On the Island a chance. I could not have made a better decision! And I am forever indebted to Ashley for helping me become aware of the writing genius who is Tracey Garvis-Graves.

On the Island is one of *those books* you know what I’m talking about right?!?! The moment you finish the book you are on the phone telling your friends how they HAVE TO READ this amazing book you just finished…Well, I literally put my reader in my BFF’s hands looked at her and said “you have to read this tonight so that I can talk to you about it tomorrow. And we did! We got together the next day just to gush about how much we loved this book.

On the Island grabs you from the very start.

I was thirty years old when the seaplane T.J. Callahan and I were traveling on crash-landed in the Indian Ocean. T.J. was sixteen, and three months into remission from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The pilots name was Mick, but he died before we hit the water.

Crazy amazing opening paragraph right?!?!

I loved that Tracey Garvis-Graves wrote on the Island with alternating points of view between T.J. and Anna so that we could know what each were thinking . Anna and T.J. were exactly who they needed to be. Anna was always portrayed as a thirty year old woman who was caring and responsible. I wanted her to survive and have the full life she deserved. Anna was so easy to like.  T.J. starts out as the typical teenage boy, though he was a bit more mature than most I know. His maturity is due to battling a life threatening illness that he is now in remission from, I was thankful that every nuance was explained in the main characters. As their time on the island extends T.J. naturally grows into a man. Yep, that’s right They are on the island for years. I loved T.J.! He was funny, caring, and just such a guy. I couldn’t help but fall for him.

Anna and T.J. are on the island for such a long time and they go through so much together, that by the time the romance really started to happen I was begging for it! Don’t worry! By the time Anna becomes OK with any type of romantic feelings T.J. is very much a man who has had it bad for Anna for a long time.
Once the romance was off the ground you would think it would be happy sailing with all they had survived so far on the island. But let me tell you, with every page I was wondering what horrible thing was going to happen to them next, or if they would even make it off the island at all.

I had long since abandoned the notion that I held any kind of rank over T.J. I may have been older and had more life experience, but that didn't matter on the island. We took each day as it came, addressing and solving problems together.

The island is a beautiful and treacherous place.Anna and T.J.’s everyday survival is so well written and amazing that I could not put On the Island down. I wont tell you if they made it off the island or even if they managed to stay together if they did get it off. What I will tell you is that when I finished this book I was left satisfied, satisfied in a way that has not happened while reading in a long time.

I’m telling you go read this now! You will not regret it. I will be reading everything Tracey Garvis-Graves writes from now on.

Happy reading,

Loved it! I want to know about everything this author writes.

Recommended For

Teen and up: Yes, there is sex but it is not graphic. There is some language, and all the other things that comes with a teenage boy becoming an adult. All my readers who only read paranormal and genres that surround that realm…you should give this contemporary a try, I think it will surprise you. I have already reread it once.

Waiting On Wednesday (43)

Enter my Blogiversary 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: Splintered
Author: A.G. Howard
Publisher: Amulet Books
Release Date: January 1, 2013
ISBN-10: 1419704281
ISBN-13: 978-1419704284
Goodreads   Amazon

For sixteen years, Alyssa Gardner has lived with the stigma of being descended from Alice Liddell -- the real life inspiration for Lewis Carroll's famed novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. But cruel jokes about dormice and tea parties can’t compare to the fact that Alyssa hears the whispers of bugs and flowers ... the same quirk which sent her mother to a mental institution years before.

When her mother takes a turn for the worse and the whispers grow too strong for Alyssa to bear, she seeks the origins of their family curse. A set of heirlooms and a moth tied to an unusual website lead Alyssa and her gorgeous best friend / secret crush, Jeb, down the rabbit hole into the real Wonderland, a place more twisted and eerie than Lewis Carroll ever let on.

There, creepy counterparts of the original fairytale crew reveal the purpose for Alyssa’s journey, and unless she fixes the things her great-great-great grandmother Alice put wrong, Wonderland will have her head.(Goodreads)

Why I’m Waiting

Um really, after seeing that cover and reading that blurb… Aren't you wanting this just as much as me? I hate the fact that I have to wait till January for this:(

I have always loved the story of Alice in wonderland! I have even read it with my children. I think incorporating this version of new with the original is going to be a lot of fun. I all kinds of want this now!!!

Are you excited about Splintered?
What are you waiting on?

Review: Grave Mercy by R.L. LaFevers

Title: Grave Mercy
Author: Robin LaFevers
Hardcover: 560 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children
Release Date: April 3, 2012
ISBN-10: 054762834X
ISBN-13: 978-0547628349
Source: Publishers via NetGalley
Goodreads   Amazon

Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?

Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.

Ismae's most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared—not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart?(Goodreads)

Review

Historical reads can be hit and miss with me, but I had never read an historical-YA-paranormal-romance. Oh my gravy y’all, put it all together add in amazing characters, lots of action, and visual settings, it equals awesome! 

When we first meet Ismae she is a young teenager being sold off into marriage. Ismae doesn’t think much of herself, even though she is strong, she has been treated horribly by her father all her life. But she knows who she really is…who her real father is, and people that know are afraid of that.

I risk a glance up at my husband-to-be, Guillo, and wonder if my father has told him of my lineage. I am guessing not, for who would pay three silver coins for what I am.

It was such a joy to read about Ismae’s evolution. Ismae goes from being this rundown, low girl who seems to feel that having death (St Mortain) as her real father makes her no good and unlovable. But after Ismae is rescued by the Covent of Saint Mortain she discovers how amazing those who are sired by St Mortain can be. I loved watching her train in becoming a strong, kick but heroin assassin. Ismae's classes at the convent are not the typical ones you would think of. By the time Ismae goes out on her first assignment she knows all ways in which to seduce and kill a man.

Oh, you know you want to read how she got to that point!

Ismae in a round about way ends up being paired up with Duval. I LOVED Duval!!! He is everything you want in a leading male character. Duval is the brother of Anne the duchess to be and is extremely protective of Anne. Duval will do anything to protect the soon-to-be duchess and get her on the thrown she deserves, including defying others in his family.

The relationship between Ismae and Duval is slow (in a good way). At first they can’t stand one another and there is no trust between them. As the story progressed there was nothing I wanted more than for Duval and Anne to find a way to be together.       

Whenever you are ready, or if you never are, my heart is yours, until Death do us part.

Swoon!!!

The true turning point in Grave Mercy for me (trying for non-spoilery here) is when Ismae finally meets the two people (Um, maybe I should say beings, not sure on that one.) that had the biggest hand in creating Ismae from the beginning. You can probably guess who I’m talking about but meeting these people put a big chink in everything she had been taught at the convent about being a daughter of Death.

  

... I would find a way to serve both my god and my heart. Surely He does not give us hearts so we may spend our lives ignoring them…

If you are anything like me you will love the slow build of Grave Mercy. Robin LaFevers does an amazing job at making her characters real to me. I wanted nothing more than to see them succeed! I can’t wait to read the next book in this series and find out if some of my favorite side characters make it or not.

Happy reading,

Awesome! Reread worthy.

Recommended For

I know this is marketed as YA but I think of it more as a crossover. Yes, I think teens will enjoy it but also adults should not pass this one up.

It’s Monday! What are you Reading?

This is my first time participating in this meme:)

"It's Monday! What are you reading?" is a fun meme hosted by Sheila @ Book Journey. This is where we share the books we have read last week and our reading plans for this week.

What I read last week

Click cover image to go to Goodreads page.

I totally know what all the fuss is about now! Yeah OK, these may not be for everyone, but I very much enjoyed them.

Click cover image to go to Goodreads page.

I don’t know when I will have this review up. But I love Elizabeth Hunter and her new non-paranormal does not disappoint. You should pick this up when it comes out.

Reviews coming this Week

Click cover image to go to Goodreads page.

Have y’all read this? I did not expect to like it as much as I did…Such a great story.

Click cover image to go to Goodreads page.

How about I LOVE the new covers for this series!!! The Songs of Magic series is so much fun. If you have not tried it yet you should.

What I’m Reading Now

Click cover image to go to Goodreads page.

I am half way through and I am totally hooked.

I hope to get to this

Click cover image to go to Goodreads page.

I have been wanting to read this one.

Other News

My Blogiversary Giveaway is going on! Don’t forget to ENTER.

Can’t wait to hear of your plans for the week.

Happy Reading,

In My Mailbox (35)

My Blogiversary Giveaway!!!

click above to enter:)

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.

For Review

Goodreads   Amazon

Thanks to Tanglewood Press and Netgalley.

I loved Ashfall! And I am so excited to get back into this world.

From the Library

Goodreads   Amazon

I really enjoyed Firelight. I am so excited to finally be reading this sequel.

Free on Amazon Kindle

I don’t know that they are still free.

Goodreads   Amazon

This has gotten some good reviews, and it sounds like it could be a fun read.

Goodreads   Amazon

This has actually been on my to read list for some time, so I’m very excited to get it.

Have you read any of these titles?

What did you get in your mailbox?

It’s Blogiversary Giveaway!!!

Y’all can you believe it? I made it a whole year

In this past year I have gone from this:

And only reviewing certain genres.

To  this:

Out of my box:) And reviewing all different genres.

I am so thankful to all of you who have followed and supported me over the past year! I have met so many awesome bloggers, and authors that I would never have had the chance to communicate with were it not for starting Bending The Spine. So as a thank you I want to do a giveaway…

First Place

Winner will choose any book or books up to $25 from bookdepository.

(If they ship to you you’re in!)

Second Place

Winner will choose a book up to $15 from bookdepository.

(If they ship to you you’re in!)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I want to go ahead and thank everyone who enters!

Good luck,