Showcase Sunday #60

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.  

Hey lovelies! I hope the autumn weather has been treating you well, this season and Winter are my favourite couple of months, as I enjoy nothing more than cosying up with a nice hot drink and a good book. The last couple of weeks, I ended up buying a few books that I had my eye on for some time. I totally blame my co-blogger Rachel, Lauren @ Love is not a Triangle and Joy @ Joyous Reads for my copy of Archetype, I had heard so many great things that I needed to know what I was missing out on. And of course I was thrilled to receive a copy of The Mime Order, I thoroughly enjoyed The Bone Season, so can't wait to continue with this series.

Jasprit's Haul:

Rachel's Haul:
(Click on title for Goodreads link)

 

Thank you to: Scholastic, Karen Rock, Penguin Group, and Netgalley!

I’m so excited to continue on with Blue Lily, Lily Blue, the third book in The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater, but I want to re-read The Dream Thieves first for a refresher.  I’ll listen to the audio book this time.

I got the audio book of Lethal by Sandra Brown through my library after Heidi’s @Rainy Day Ramblings very informative Tell Me Something Tuesday post.  You can download titles directly onto your phone through the phone app: Overdrive. Yay for free books! Lethal is amazing so far, by the way! I also got Shattered the seventh book in the Iron Druid Chronicles through the library and I can’t wait to start that one because Hunted left on a bit of a cliffhanger!

Leave us a link to your book hauls in the comments, we'd love to see what you received! 

Author Event Recap & Giveaway: Becca Fitzpatrick & Christina Lauren

 

I (Rachel) had the pleasure of attending an author event for Becca Fitzpatrick and the writing duo known as Christina Lauren to launch their new releases Black Ice and Sublime respectively.  I read and LOVED Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick and I'll be giving away a SIGNED copy below. 

It was a fun event with the authors, each had stories of writing and inspiration that really captivated the whole crowd.  Here are some of the highlights:

Becca Fitzpatrick:

• Inspriations for Becca Fitzpatrick’s Black Ice are a missed Spring Break camping trip to the Tetons and a cheesy 90’s romantic suspense movie: The Companion.  The books plot has almost nothing to do with the movie, other than kidnapping and a mountain cabin, so don’t worry there.  She did eventually go back to the Tetons and hike some of the trail featured in the book.

• Becca decided on writing at the young age of eight when she watched the movie Romancing the Stone in which the heroine who is a romance writer traveled to Columbia, hunted for treasure, and fell in love with a tall dark and handsome man! She thought: how could you go wrong there?!

• In college she was sidetracked from this goal and instead wanted to be a spy. She applied to the CIA twice and never heard back. Their loss.

• Becca sometimes struggles with dialogue in a story. To make sure her teen dialogue is authentic she’ll sometimes go to movie theaters, coffee shops, etc, and eavesdrop on teen conversations.

• It took her five years of queries to sell Hush, Hush. Each time she’d work on it some more and resubmit. Her writing advice is persistence, determination, and hard work.

• Becca was asked if she had Drew Doyan’s phone number (The male model for the covers of the Hush, Hush series).  Lol! FYI: She does have it! 

• Becca had sold film rights to Hush, Hush sometime back, the screen play was written and she read it and liked it, but it just didn’t feel right. She’s a firm believer in going with your gut and it just didn’t feel right to go forward with the movie at this time. She let the film rights expire and they have now reverted back to her. At this time there are no plans for a Hush, Hush movie but that may change in future.

• Favorite books: The Summer I Turned Pretty series by Jenny Hahn because she felt exactly the awkward teen girl in the pages when she was growing up.

 Christina Lauren:

• Christina Lauren is a writing duo who met through writing fan fiction. They liked each other’s stories and so decided to collaborate.

• Sublime was inspired by: the Wordsworth poem, Lucy Gray about a girl who walks out into a snow storm and never comes back, the urban legend of The Lady in White and by stories of someone falling into a frozen lake and coming out intake after a long period of time. They compared it to Flatliners meets ghosts.

• The title of Sublime comes from the process of Sublimation where a substance is converted directly from a solid into a gas without going into the liquid phase. They were happy the publishers let them keep their original title.

• Christina Lauren’s adult book Beautiful Bastard has been optioned by Constantine.  They’ve read the script and love it. They had script approval, but beyond that they trust to the film makers.  As Lauren put it: They know how to write books, make a great quesadilla, but don’t know anything about making movies.

• Lauren said getting published is luck and a weird convergence of things. It's not enough just to write a great book. Writing a book of your heart that also happens to be on trend is a big factor. But write the book you’re passionate about, not what you think would sell, otherwise you'll never be happy with the work.

• Favorite books: Fobidden by Tabitha Suzuma, The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson, and anything by Stephanie Perkins.

I attended this event at the Huntington Beach, California Barnes & Noble and that place is huge! The YA section goes on for days:

I LOVED Black Ice so I had Becca Fitzpatrick sign an extra copy for one of our readers! The giveaway is restricted to US and Canadian Residents. Just fill out the rafflecopter for a chance to win.

Review: Mean Streak by Sandra Brown

Mean Streak by Sandra Brown
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication date: August 19th 2014
My rating:  5 stars 
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository  

 

Dr. Emory Charbonneau, a pediatrician and marathon runner, disappears on a mountain road in North Carolina. By the time her husband Jeff, miffed over a recent argument, reports her missing, the trail has grown cold. Literally. Fog and ice encapsulate the mountainous wilderness and paralyze the search for her.

While police suspect Jeff of "instant divorce," Emory, suffering from an unexplained head injury, regains consciousness and finds herself the captive of a man whose violent past is so dark that he won't even tell her his name. She's determined to escape him, and willing to take any risks necessary to survive.

Unexpectedly, however, the two have a dangerous encounter with people who adhere to a code of justice all their own. At the center of the dispute is a desperate young woman whom Emory can't turn her back on, even if it means breaking the law.

As her husband's deception is revealed, and the FBI closes in on her captor, Emory begins to wonder if the man with no name is, in fact, her rescuer.

My Thoughts:

Mean Streak was my first reading experience by Sandra Brown, but it won’t be my last. It was a cleverly crafted mystery with plenty of suspense, danger, twists and turns, and a very sexy romance!  I think it’s best to go in with just the barest of facts and relish the mystery and revelations as they come.

Dr. Emory Charbonneau is training for a marathon and goes on a strenuous mountain trail, gets knocked out and wakes up in a stranger’s cabin without any knowledge of how she got there. The stranger is kind and cares for Emory, but he’s not forthcoming at all.  She has no idea if he means her any harm, but she’s definitely on guard because things do not add up.  Will he let her go once she’s well enough?  Is he hiding from something like the law and does he have more sinister plans for her?  There is a raw masculine quality to this him that excites and scares Emory.

Every feminine urge had sprung to life, and it wasn’t just the long dormancy that had made her sexual desire so acute. It was him.

In the mean time, Emory’s husband, Jeff waits to sound the alarm after she goes missing, and this raises suspicions and questions.  They were not on the best of terms when Emory walked out the door, but does that make him guilty of anything?

Oh, this mystery was so addictive and well crafted!  I’m a huge mystery fan and I’ve read so many that it’s hard to pull one over on me, but I was surprised several times!  Loved these twists and turns! I was even surprised with the culprit, but looking back it was a well supported conclusion, I just didn’t see it. I hate it when an author reveals the offender and it comes as a shock because no foundation was laid. Not the case here, and I was in awe of Sandra Brown’s plotting!

As for the romance, it was delicious and sensual, and I won’t say much more than that! Oh, my!

“If I’d had to, I would have wrapped you in bailing wire and carried you off. Because I’d rather see you shy away from me, rather see you cringing with fright and mistrust like you are now, rather see you any other way except dead.”

It wasn’t poetry, but it was profound. Her heart expanded with emotion.

This is a definite recommend!

 

Spotlight & Giveaway: Promise Me This by Christina Lee

 

I'm thrilled to be part of the Blog Tour for Promise Me This by Christina Lee because I've adored this series!  I can't wait to pick up this installment and I plan on doing it very soon!  Be sure to scroll down to enter in the giveaway for a chance to win a Paperback copy of All of You and Before You Break!

Promise Me This (Between Breaths #4) by Christina Lee

Publication Date: October 7th 2014

Publisher: InterMix

Buy Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | Kobo

A new love will test the boundaries of passion between a privileged boy next door and the tattooed, blue-haired girl who helps him embrace his wild side...

Nate has developed quite a playboy reputation around campus. It's not that he doesn't respect or trust women; he doesn't trust himself. The men in Nate’s family are prone to abusive behavior—a dirty secret that Nate’s been running from his entire life—so Nate doesn't do relationships. But he can’t help himself around one girl…

Jessie is strong, independent, and works at a tattoo parlor. Nate can’t resist getting close to her, even if it’s strictly a friendship. But it doesn't take long for Nate to admit that what he wants with Jessie is more than just friendly.

With Jessie, he can be himself and explore what he’s always felt was a terrifying darkness inside him. Even when Nate begins to crave her in a way that both shocks and horrifies him, Jessie still wants to know every part of him. Testing their boundaries together will take a trust that could render them inseparable… or tear them apart.

About the author:
Mother, wife, reader, dreamer. Christina lives in the Midwest with her husband and son--her two favorite guys. She's addicted to lip gloss, salted caramel everything, and believes in true love and kissing, so writing romance novels has become a dream job.

Connect with Christina Lee:

Facebook | Twitter | Website 

Review: Chaos (Guards of the Shadowlands #3) by Sarah Fine

Chaos (Guards of the Shadowlands #3) by Sarah Fine
Publisher: Skyscape
Publication date: October 7th 2014
My rating: 4 stars.  

Chaos by Sarah Fine was one of my highly anticipated reads of this year. With Fractured everything was tossed upon its head and we were left with many unanswered questions and a gaping hole in my heart. I was ready for anything that Sarah would throw my way and hoping that the characters that had been through so much, would finally get the happy ending that they deserved.

The settings that Fine has focused on her last two books have been spectacular, I loved the worlds she was able to create and how she appeared to make them so real. To be honest the world we found ourselves in Fractured was my favourite, it was “safer” than the previous world and I adored the group of people Lela and Malachi had around them. But the way things went down, I was preparing myself for the worst. And I was sort of right for doing so, this new world that Fine creates in Chaos is a lot darker and unsettling. Honestly you know how a setting can affect your mood completely?  This happened to me with this book, I felt all the confidence I had for our characters slip away, I found myself getting angry over what our characters had to go through and how unfair life had to be for them, hadn’t they been through enough?

Despite being pushed and pushed Lela really came through strong in this book. From the way she was in Sanctum, she has really grown as a person. I adored how she was willing to sacrifice everything to get what she wanted and how she would put her neck on the line time and time again. I loved how beyond the scars and pain, what mattered the most; Malachi’s and Lela’s love for each other still came through, I don’t want to say too much without giving so many spoilers away, but it was really heartbreaking at times seeing some of our characters we’ve known to be so strong finally have their backs against the wall. I honestly lost hope so many times, assuming the worst for these characters that I’d known to love and become close with. Fine was a master at messing with your feelings, at times she would wrap you in comfort, easing your tense feeling and giving you the belief that everything was going to be okay, but in the next moment, wham, she’d hit you with something out of the blue that I didn’t know what to think.

Chaos was a story riddled with so much chaos, and destruction, but it was a story which I hold close to my heart. I enjoyed the frenzied pace, how we never knew what was around the corner, but most of all that our characters were given one more chance. The Guards of the Shadowlands series was one heck of a fantastic journey and I know for a fact it is one series that I won’t be forgetting for a long time.