Showcase Sunday #16

Showcase Sunday is a weekly meme hosted by Vicky at Books, Biscuits and Tea. The aim is to showcase our newest books or book related swag and to see what everyone else received for review, borrowed from libraries, bought in bookshops and downloaded onto eReaders this week.

Hello everyone, I can’t believe two weeks have already last since our last showcase, before you know it will be Christmas already! For me the Christmas presents have already started trickling in. As you know my sister isn’t an avid reader as I am, so I can’t share bookish gifts with her, but my cousin is every bit obsessed as me and lately we’ve made sure we get each other a book for Christmas. My cousin spoiled me this year as she gifted me two books from my wish list, Front and Center and 7 Clues to Winning You. I’m loving the Dairy Queen series. I actually started the second book in a read along with the lovely Keertana and Leanne and zoomed right ahead and finished it without them! (sorry!). I think this series is a definite hidden gem everyone should read. I always wanted to read 7 Clues to Winning You after Nick recommended that fans of Anna and the French Kiss would love it.

Eon: Rise of the Dragoneye by Alison Goodman

Survive by Alex Morel

The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna

7 Clues to Winning You by Kristin Walker

Me Before You by JoJo Moyes

Front and Center by Catherine Gilbert Murdock.

Thank you to Electric Monkey and Random House UK.

I had to grab a copy of Eon when I realised my library stocked a copy (as usual my endless lurking on their catalogue paid off). I’ve been enjoying fantasy books a lot more lately and have you seen the number of 5 star reviews this book has a Goodreads? (4703!) And it’s an Aussie, enough said. Survive is another book I wouldn’t normally pick up, but the blurb sounds fascinating. You can check at the cover for it here. Thanks to Keertana’s fabulous review I was super excited when I had the chance to read a copy of The Lost Girl; doesn’t it look and sound fantastic? And I had to go and get a copy of Me Before You after reading Bonnie’s lovely review, I’ve never read book by Moyes before so I have my fingers crossed.

Gravity by Melissa West

The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay
Opal by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Thank you to NetGalley, Entangled Publishing and Atria Books.

I only received two books from Netgalley this week, I’m really trying to put a dent on my pile, but it’s so hard when you read gorgeous reviews for The Sea of Tranquillity by Keertana here and for Gravity by Sam here. Both of these ladies are getting the full blame for the awesomeness that arrived at my house this week! J

Over to Rachel now to see the pretties she received.

For review:

Taken by Erin Bowman

Pivot Point by Kasie West

Touch & Go by Lisa Gardner

The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

Going Vintage by Lindsey Leavitt

If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

Thank you to St. Martin’s Griffin, Harper Teen, Atria Books, Bloomsbury, Edelweiss, and Netgalley.

Bought:

Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews (audiobook)
Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews (Audiobook)
Return to You by Kate Perry
The Edge of Never by J.A. Redmerski

I am so excited to read If You Find Me, it sounds like an amazing contemporary. After being taken and isolated from the real world by their mentally ill mother, it’ll be interesting to see how things play out for Carey.  I loved Sean Griswold’s Head by Lindsey Leavitt, it was adorable. So I have high hopes for Going Vintage.  I’ve been having great success with audio books lately so I picked up another Urban Fantasy *looks pointedly at Maja and Keertana* lol!  I wasn’t blow away by Magic Bites but it was a solid start.  I’ve heard it only gets better. I can’t wait for things to develop between Kate and the yummy Alpha shape-shifter Curran! 

Thank you again to the fabulous publishers for our review copies! If you have a showcase/book haul, we'd love to see what you received so leave us a link and we'll be sure to check it out soon.

Review: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Just One Day by Gayle Forman
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Publication date: January 8th 2013
My rating:  4 stars

 

A breathtaking journey toward self-discovery and true love, from the author of If I Stay
When sheltered American good girl Allyson "LuLu" Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance of Twelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

Just One Day is the first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willem’s story—Just One Year—is coming soon!

After reading and loving If I Stay and Where She Went by Gayle Forman, I was thrilled to hear Ms. Forman was working on a new novel, Just One Day.  Just One Day was a bittersweet story that entranced me, took hold of my heart, and gave it a great big squeeze!  My heart still aches.  

Allyson is almost to the end of her graduation present, a three week trip touring Europe.  She’s spent the time speed traveling through Europe, and is now in London on the last leg of the trip.  On a whim and an accident, she meets charismatic Willem, a Dutch actor at the end of his tour performing the Shakespearean play, Twelfth Night.  There is an instant connection and attraction.  When he finds out that Allyson missed Paris and is about to travel home without seeing it, he insists she go there with him as her guide.  Normally Allyson would never do such a thing.  Break her plans, and do something spur of the moment and with a total stranger?  No way.  But the past few weeks of let down and disappointment from her trip have worn her down, and she’s ready to take a leap into the unknown.  They spend an amazing and strange day together, and an incredible night, but when Allyson wakes, Willem is gone and left no clue where to find him. 

Shattered, she goes home and tries to plunge into college but she just can’t shake the pain.  Added to that, Allyson is enrolled in classes basically picked by her mother as a pre-med student.  That one day doing as she pleased in Paris, had more of a profound effect on her than she realized, and she just can’t stomach going along with other’s expectations anymore.  

This story broke my heart!  The first third of the book had a dreamy but achy quality to it, because she’s spending this amazing but intense day with Willem, and you know it won’t last.  She’s going home, and so is he, but I didn’t expect for him to just up and leave her!  At that point on Allyson basically goes through a big depression and I felt like I went through it with her.   As heartbreaking as the experience was, doing the unexpected was liberating for Allyson, and soon she starts to question what she really wants out of life. 

I felt so bad for Allyson, I felt like she was bullied by her mother and her “friend,” Melanie.  Spending time with these two sucked the confidence and will right out of her.  I really couldn’t stand Melanie.  At the beginning of the trip she was nothing but an attention hog, and put Allyson down continually.  The mother was another character I couldn’t stand.  She poured her own expectations into Allyson instead of letting her find what was right for her.  I hate to say this, but I didn’t like Willem for most of the book either, and it seemed the more I found out about him, the more I hated him.  However, hold that thought and don’t let that sway you too much against him.  There is more to his story.  Still, it wasn’t enough for me to like him,..…..yet.   I’m hoping I see a completely different side of things from him in the next book, which apparently is in his POV.  I hope to find out that appearances were misleading.   I hope this for Allyson, and well, for me too!  You know me, I want that happy ending. 

Don’t read this if you haven’t read If I Stay.  I have to think back to my feelings when I read it, and remember that for most of the story I had this achy feeling, as well.  Yes, Adam and Mia loved each other, but looming ahead of them were their futures, which were about to take a very different and separate path.  Even without the accident, they had a tough road ahead, and I kept wondering how things were going to work.  This was multiplied tenfold when I started Where She Went and found out what happened!  But tsk, tsk, ye of little faith (yes, that was me).  Of course Gayle Forman made it right, and the heartbreak only made the end SO MUCH SWEETER!   So I HAVE to believe this is what she will do here.  Work her magic and heal my heart.  We shall see.  I will leave off with a swoony quote to soothe some of the heartache:

“As if disconnected to the rest of my body, my hand raises in the air and goes to touch his cheek.  But before it arrives, Willem’s hand whips around and grabs my wrist.  For one confused second, I think I’ve misread the situation again, am about to be refused.  Willem holds my wrist for a long moment, looking at that birthmark.  Then he lifts it to his mouth.  And though his lips are soft and his kiss is gentle, it feels like a knife jamming into the electrical socket. It feels like the moment I go live.”*

*Quote is taken from and uncorrected proof and may change in the final copy. 

Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication date: 15th November 2011
My rating: 4.5 stars

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war– and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

Shatter Me was another book after finishing it I wanted to pull my hair out and scream why DID I NOT READ THIS SOONER!!! Seriously after receiving a copy of Unravel Me I decided to get my butt into gear and do some serious damage to my mountainous tbr pile and I’m so, so, so glad that I decided to pick Shatter Me up. I was a little wary at first as me and dystopians never really click, but I’d had a good run lately but then picked some not so great ones. But with Shatter Me it was a whole another reading experience, I was happily hooked from the first page.

Juliette has been locked away without touching anyone for 264 days; she’s locked away for her own good, as her touch can be deadly. (Remind anyone of Rogue from X-men?). But then she’s given a roommate Adam out of the blue, she hasn’t spoken to a soul in what seems like ages and so it’s a shock to the system having someone so close trying to talk to her especially someone from her past. But things get stranger when Juliette’s yanked out from the asylum and things she assumed about her roommate aren’t what she expected.

The whole world Juliette found herself in was so crazy, because of her ability Juliette saw herself as a monster but others such as Warner the guy who took her out of the asylum thought she was the best thing ever. Warner, I never could really hate him, despite everything he did and his whole end plan he never really got under my skin, in places I did want to thoroughly pummel him for putting Juliette and Adam through so much and he was very much deluded, but I think I don’t know his character that well to go into a full blown Warner hate campaign. I’m sure there are several valid explanations as to why he thinks the way he does and why he’s proposing such a heinous plan. So I’m just waiting to get to know him that bit more before I make my judgement. Also I may have heard some interesting things coming through Destroy Me and Unravel Me which may have got my interest piqued.

Adam *sigh* there seems to be a strong pattern emerging through ya books that all male characters with the name Adam seem to have the ability to make me melt into a puddle and I tend to lose my stream of thoughts. Adam strongly reminded me of Four from Divergent, he was tough, would defend what was right, even if that meant going against the right path or rules and did I mention hot?

The writing style of Shatter Me I would say was unusual; there was an overload of metaphors all over the place, which took me a while to get my head around. I found myself breezing through the book, but then the overuse of metaphors would jumble everything up for a while. I’m sure some of them clashed too, which made things a bit confusing. Also the use of strike text, I was like what is the point of this, is this really necessary? But as the book progressed we saw far less of it and I did begin to miss it. These are my only minor gripes with Shatter Me, I know these really irritated some readers, but I do think that if you are able to overlook this then Shatter Me is a worthwhile read.

Overall Shatter Me was a thrilling read, I love books which are full of action, are fast paced, have a sizzling romance and always keep you guessing with what could be lurking around the corner. I salute Tahereh Mafi for creating such a gripping read. Please excuse me if you don’t hear from me for the next few days as my face will be stuck in Unravel Me!

Also how cool are these banners by Rachel over at Parajunkee. I’m so torn between Adam and Warner, so I think I’m going to put both of these banners up!    

         

Sanctum: Malachi's Journal Entries and Giveaway

Hello readers.  You may have remembered that I read and loved Sanctum by Sarah Fine. So I'm so thrilled that Sarah invited The Readers Den to be part of this awesome event for Sanctum.  We get to read TEN Journal Entries from Malachi! He's one of my favorite male fictional characters.  I drooled and swooned over him during my entire read, so I'm so excited to get more insight into his mind. Be sure to scroll down for a list of the other participating blogs to get the other journal entries, and remember to fill in the rafflecopter for a chance to win Sanctum along with some awesome swag!

Book Description: "My plan: Get into the city. Get Nadia. Find a way out. Simple."

A week ago, seventeen-year-old Lela Santos’s best friend, Nadia, killed herself. Today, thanks to a farewell ritual gone awry, Lela is standing in paradise, looking upon a vast gated city in the distance – hell. No one willingly walks through the Suicide Gates, into a place smothered in darkness and infested with depraved creatures. But Lela isn’t just anyone – she’s determined to save her best friend’s soul, even if it means sacrificing her eternal afterlife.

As Lela struggles to find Nadia, she’s captured by the Guards, enormous, not-quite-human creatures that patrol the dark city’s endless streets. Their all-too human leader, Malachi, is unlike them in every way except one: his deadly efficiency. When he meets Lela, Malachi forms his own plan: get her out of the city, even if it means she must leave Nadia behind. Malachi knows something Lela doesn’t – the dark city isn’t the worst place Lela could end up, and he will stop at nothing to keep her from that fate.

 

A quote from SANCTUM:  

"Malachi’s quarters had no windows, no decorations. His room was just like everything else about him—nothing unnecessary, nothing wasted. His narrow cot rested in a corner, right next to something that looked like a hat rack. He walked straight to it and hung his bloody, stained armor over it. A small desk stood across from the rack, but the only things that sat upon it were a fountain pen and a single book, like some kind of journal. Neatly stacked in a corner rose a tower of identical books as tall as I was. A lot of journals."

 

If you want to get to know someone, reading his journal is the way to do it (though you should probably ask permission first). Malachi is no exception: his journals contain his thoughts, hopes, fears, plans, and adventures during his time in the dark city. Starting today, excerpts will post regularly throughout the publication of the Guards of the Shadowlands series at www.guardsoftheshadowlands.tumblr.com, but to get things started, you can read excerpts from Malachi's first ten days as a Guard NOW. And you can enter to win one of ten SANCTUM swag packs, which include an exclusive bonus scene from Malachi's point-of-view!  

Now here is DAY TWO from Malachi's Journal:

Day 2: Philip has hair the color of muddy straw and a deep, slow way of speaking. The problem: I don't understand a word he's saying. He makes reassuring gestures, but there are knives strapped around his thighs and a baton at his belt. I tried to take both from him, but it turns out he's faster than the enormous Guards I took down before. I probably shouldn't have attacked him. It made him spill the soup he brought me, and it is now puddled on the floor. I am so hungry that I'm ready to lick what remains of it from the stones. I will never be strong enough to escape if I don't eat. 

Bio: Sarah Fine was born on the West Coast, raised in the Midwest, and is now firmly entrenched on the East Coast, where she lives with her husband and two children. When she's not writing, she's working as a child psychologist. No, she is not psychoanalyzing you right now.

Twitter  Facebook  Tumblr  Website  Goodreads


Journal Schedule:

December 6th:                                                                 
Day 1: Lili's Reflections                Day 7: Paperback Princess
Day 2: The Readers Den               Day 8: Collections
Day 3: Rainy Day Ramblings          December 7th:
Day 4: Ivy Book Bindings               Day 9: Love of Books
Day 5: The Nocturnal Library        December 14th:
Day 6: Bookitty Blog                     Day 10: My Guilty Obsession


Now here's the good part.   We have graciously been provided a copy of Sanctum to giveaway which includes swag and a bonus POV from Malachi!! Yay! Each site has their own giveaway so be sure and visit them all.  You must be 14 years of age or older to enter the giveaway.  The giveaway is INTERNATIONAL so fill out the rafflecopter below for a chance to win!

Review: Severed by Sarah Alderson

Severed by Sarah Alderson
Publisher: Amazon
Publication date: 28th November 2012
My rating: 4 stars

Fate brought them together.
Now it’s threatening to tear them apart.

As the last in a long line of demon slayers, Evie’s destiny is to end the war that has raged for centuries between humans and demons.

Lucas, the half-Shadow Warrior half-human who was sent to kill her, has betrayed his own Brotherhood and his family to fight alongside her.

With an army of unhumans on their tail, Evie and Lucas are forced into an uneasy alliance with a group of rogue Hunters who offer protection and the promise of answers.

As the past is untangled and the dark history of the Hunters revealed, Evie discovers that severing the realms is going to require a lot more than just fighting. It’s going to require a sacrifice – one that only she can make.

…More than realms will be severed.

Alderson has again produced fast and fiery sequel in Severed. If you were suckered in by Fated, you honestly haven’t seen anything yet. Alderson in my eyes has quickly become the master of surprises; the sucker punches that came in Severed had me sitting in shock, left my mind reeling and had me wanting to jump up and down shouting how could you do this to me?

In Severed we are reunited with the unexpected pair of Lucas and Evie, after everything’s that’s gone down, they’re on the run with who knows how many unhumans after them. But that’s not the worst of it; they still need to find out about the prophecy and how they can bring an end to the chaos. But in the process they end up discovering something they never expected.

I can’t believe it was nearly a year ago when Alderson introduced us to Lucas and Evie, after devouring Hunting Lila a few weeks before I didn’t think any other character could compare. But being back with Lucas and Evie has made me realise just how much of an impression they had made the first time around. I was beyond excited to dive into their world of unhumans again, to see Evie and Lucas fighting their way through everything thrown at them, would their relationship be strong enough this time? I liked the different sides we got to see of Lucas and Evie in Severed. Evie has definitely grown up loads after first discovering she was a hunter. With their lives constantly on the line, she was strong and always ready to go into battle. With so many lives lost previously Evie didn’t want to put anyone else in the same position and so quickly became aware of the risks she had to take, she didn’t dither about in the slightest. In comparison Lucas I was a bit unsure about at first, he had lost the brotherhood and had every single unhuman after him and Evie after what he had done. It took a while for the Lucas I‘d become to love from Fated to come through, but once he was back, boy I couldn’t endure to part from him. Severed also enabled us to delve into a more fragile side of both characters, we were able to learn their hopes and what worried them the most; not having the other are around. It did often result in some heartbreaking scenes which left me with a lump in my throat. But Alderson also takes their relationship a whole another notch, be prepared to swoon girls!

I was also slightly worried that the gap left by characters from Fated; Neena and Risper would be extremely had to fulfil. But my worrying was totally uncalled for as Alderson provides us with new characters which I enjoyed even more and I’m sure will leave a great impression on everyone as they did with me. Cyrus is definitely a character to look at for, he really had made me confused at first, but his cheeky demeanour and totally uncalled for comments around Evie and Lucas had me cracking up. He’s a big character who creeped his way in and had me longing for him and his witty remarks when he never was around.

Despite Severed taking a more serious tone than Fated, Alderson weaved humour into the book well, that I found myself with a huge smile on my face when it was an inappropriate moment. Severed in my eyes is one hell of a follow up to Fated. Fans of Alderson’s work won’t be disappointed, but just be warned after finishing the last page you will be dying to get your hands on Shadowed!