22 Friday Aug 2014
Posted in friday freebie
Tags
arthurian, fantasy, friday freebie, jd field, levels, song to wake to, swordsand sorcery, ya, young adult
This is a book I read and loved a few months before I started posting reviews on here. It tells the Arthurian legend from the angle of what happens when Arthur actually is reborn in modern-day England. Now you really want to read it, right? Right?!
The boy you love is a legend.
Literally.
Blurb and cover from Amazon
15 Friday Aug 2014
Posted in friday freebie
Tags
epic fantasy, fantasy, friday freebie, jeff gunzel, mg, new adult, swordsand sorcery, ya, young adult
The gorgeous lands of Tarmerria are full of magic and beauty. But the virtually lawless cities contain no shortage of darkness and greed. A land where daily survival in the harsh realm takes priority over all else. But the world is about to change. The ancient prophecies, written during a time long forgotten, just might be true after all.
Join in as unlikely companions from completely different worlds set out on the adventure of a lifetime. A search for answers. A search for the truth.
This book is intended for mature audiences
Blurb and cover from Goodreads
09 Saturday Aug 2014
Posted in friday freebie
Tags
dystopia, friday freebie, jen minkman, mg, middle grade, novella, the island, ya, young adult
I walk toward the sea. The endless surface of the water extends to the horizon, whichever way I look.
Our world is small. We are on our own, and we only have ourselves to depend on. We rely on the Force deep within us, as taught to us by our forefathers.
If I were to walk westward from here, I would come across a barrier – the Wall. Behind it, there are Fools. At least, that’s what everyone says.
I have never seen one.
Leia lives on the Island, a world in which children leave their parents to take care of themselves when they are ten years old. Across this Island runs a wall that no one has ever crossed. The Fools living behind it are not amenable to reason – they believe in illusions. That’s what The Book says, the only thing left to the Eastern Islanders by their ancestors.
But when a strange man washes ashore and Leia meets a Fool face to face, her life will never be the same. Is what she and her friends believe about the Island really true?
Or is everyone in their world, in fact, a Fool?
Also available in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Afrikaans!
Blurb and cover from Goodreads
06 Wednesday Aug 2014
Posted in just for fun, only book people will understand
Tags
am hargrove, Erica Stevens, gerald morris, guardians of vesturon, indie books, intisar khanani, jadie jones, kaitlyn deann, madeleine l'engle, moonlit, my favorites, paranormal, sunbolt chronicles, the captive, the cats eye chronicles, the squires tales, the time quintet, The witches sleep, tll shreffler, ya
These eight book series are among my All Time Favorites and I believe they are tragically underrated. I see the memes and fangirling for The Hunger Games and The Mortal Instruments, and I can’t help but feel jealous and think “I know of books that are even better!” (Purely my opinion, but I didn’t particularly love The Hunger Games trilogy or City of Bones.) So I cannot hold it in any longer. Here are the top book series I believe should have massive fandoms of screaming fangirls and/or fanboys staying up until 2:00 a.m. to finish the latest installments or mourning the series’ conclusions. This list has expanded since I wrote the post, so you can expect a part 2!
The Cat’s Eye Chronicles by T.L. Shreffler
I discovered this series awhile back and downloaded the first, but only read it until recently. While I thought the first chapter was a bit slow, I quickly became engrossed in the story, only stopping for trivial things like eating. I went and downloaded the second book straightaway and am now living in agony waiting for the fourth/fifth’s release.
The Captive
This was my inaugural foray into vampire love stories. The writing can be rusty in places, but the story is absolutely, positively, awesome and the romance…oh, the romance! I was so sad to see the series end and ecstatic to hear of the author planning a spinoff!
The Sunbolt Chronicles
From what I have seen, anything by Intisar Khanani is incredible. Her original worlds with heroines who are strong, but still relatable and empathetic are unquestionably underrated. For clean, action-packed, magic-brimming fantasy, Khanani is your go-to source!
Moonlit
Horses, ancient love, horses, age-old prophecies, sorcery, horses, and a gloriously bad villain, what more could you want? I was not expecting to enjoy this book nearly as much as I did and I was highly impressed with the author’s talent. Definitely one worthy of a fandom and I will be stalking the internet for the first word of the trilogy conclusion.
The Witches’ Sleep by Kaitlyn Deann
I’m normally not a fan of dystopia-esque stories, but this teen author’s debut novel was the clear exception. Paranormal excitement and political intrigue mix together in perfect harmony for a story that should be read, read, read by as many people as possible.
The Squire’s Tales by Gerald Morris
Gerald Morris’ ingenious reimagining of the Arthurian legends are among my absolute favorites. Though this is more of an MG series, I am a HUGE fan of these books and wish more people were familiar with them so I could be accompanied in my mad fangirling.
The Guardians of Vesturon by A.M. Hargrove
Another wonderful romance series from a brilliant mind. Though they might not be for everyone, I find it impossible not to adore monotheistic, honor-conscious, chaste, swoon-worthy aliens and I can’t be the only one. Forget vampire or werewolf, if I had my pick, I’d take a Vesturion Guardian before you could say “shadar.”
The Time Quintet by Madeleine L’Engle
This series has the singular honor of being the only one I have read beginning to end more than once. I believe Madeleine L’Engle was a true literary genius, on par with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Her stories teach love, forgiveness, and courage in the most beautiful way and we can all learn from those lessons.
01 Friday Aug 2014
Posted in friday freebie
Tags
devon ashely, fantasy, friday freebie, paranormal, romance, the immortal archives, ya, young adult
I loved this author’s other series, Dust and Darkness, but haven’t gotten around to this one yet. I love the cover, though.
Normally, the school creates the hunters – not the monsters.
Abby Sorrensten likes to play rough. Ripping the horns off the foreheads of demons, manipulating lightning and setting things on fire with the flick of your wrist can give you a serious rush. So she probably wasn’t the best choice for the Order’s experimental training program. Thirteen years of isolation, lack of affection and a bruised and broken body from horrendous training sessions creates more than just an exceptional fighter. It creates an evil within – an evil responsible for several deaths the night she left.
Two hundred years later Abby resurfaces as the very thing the Order trained her to kill: a vampire. A mythical demon has set his sights on the school and only the ordained hunter has the powers to face it. Unbeknownst to the Order, Abby’s their precious ordained one and their only chance for survival. As much as she would love to leave them hanging, she’s not willing to risk the life of Emily, a fellow friend and hunter also fed up with the organization.
But for Abby, locking herself away in a fortress with angry descendents of those she killed causes suspicions and tensions to run high. Abby must learn the demon’s weaknesses for battle before the Order learns hers.
Blurb and cover from Goodreads
30 Wednesday Jul 2014
Posted in just for fun
Tags
adult, growing up, just me, my immaturity, na, neverland, ya
I have fifty one weeks of teenager-dom left. This has caused no small amount of panic. After about age eleven, I was one of the few kids who expressly told my parents I didn’t want to grow up. In fact, I would cry about it, lamenting my inevitable march into adulthood. Most girls were sobbing over boys, I was sobbing over growing up.
The problem is this—I still don’t want to grow up. I’m too smart to want to grow up. Growing up comes with bills and 9-5’s and insurance payments and credit cards and—ugh! Too much.
Perhaps the thing that scares me most about no longer being a teenager is that I’ll no longer be the same age as my favorite protagonists in YA novels. I know I can still read them, you can be bloody sure I’ll still read them, but nineteen is more or less the cut off point for YA.
I have basically no interest in New Adult and positively no interest in Adult. Why? I find NA and Adult literature boring. Unless it’s a swords and sorcery epic or written by a dead Englishman/woman or Greek, I probably won’t read it. I just don’t generally get along with MC’s in Adult. Some people are prejudiced against YA, I make up for that with my heartless bigotry toward Adult. (For the most part, there are some rare exceptions.)
This also means that in fifty one weeks I’ll no longer be a “teenage author.” I’ll be a “twenty-something author.” In the grand scheme of things, that’s not so bad, but the point is—I won’t be a teenager! Not to mention I’ll have to revise all my bios, including the one for this blog…
All the same, 2015’s got some exciting stuff coming. I’m working on lots of new books for you lot, not to mention I’ll hopefully be pursuing Creative Writing at a college level. (Wish me luck!)
Most of you will probably say nineteen is way too young to be lamenting the passage of time, but here’s the thing about time—it flies faster the older you get. But still, you’re right that I have no right to complain. After all, no matter what age you are, it’s like that saying—getting older is the worst thing in the world except the alternative.
All the same, if Peter Pan wants to drop by, that would be awesome.
28 Monday Jul 2014
Posted in review
Tags
amber argyle, epic fantasy, indie author, indie published, mg, middle grade, witch song, ya, young adult
The Witch Hunters have come for Brusenna, for she is the last. All the others have been captured by the Dark Witch. And without their magical songs to control nature, the world is dying.
Though young and untrained, Brusenna must succeed where every other Witch has failed. Find the Dark Witch. Fight her. Defeat her. If Brusenna fails, there will be nothing left to save—for the Witches, for mankind, or for the young Guardian who has committed his life to protecting hers.
Blurb and cover from Goodreads
5 out of 5 stars
It’s been awhile since I’ve read a fantasy novel like this—a young hero raised in ignorance of their true power leaving on a quest to defeat a great evil. In some ways it felt like going home, back to where my passion for swords and sorcery began. Lots of danger, suspense, a dash of mystery, and some sweet romance—this is the kind of book that made me fall in love with the genre.
The plot:
At a little over 320 pages printed length, it took me little over a day to finish. Despite the length, I can’t think of any portion or area where the story dragged or there was a plot hole. There’s a one year gap in the timeline somewhere around the 30% mark and while that might normally get a star reduction, it was more or less necessary to the storyline and so I’ll take it.
I think I would have liked to see less of the multiple perspectives. There were certain parts from the POV of the bad guy and a few other characters that I thought should have been cut, maybe not all, but most of them.
The characters:
Amber Argyle pulled of a HUGE amount of character development. Senna goes from being a naïve, brash, slightly bratty fifteen year old to a mature, brave, and astute leader. It really was amazing how well that was pulled off. If only we could all master character development so well. *sigh*
Joshen was the other main character who undergoes a total 360 transformation. They mature so much over the course of the story it was like watching them grow up. They were so sweet together and I did get angry at Senna’s mother, almost as much as she did. Particularly when the woman went and was getting upset over Senna not getting the permission of the Keepers before making this one big decision. Never mind that Senna didn’t know because her mother neglected to teach her or that the Keepers were kind of dead at the time. *tosses arms in the air with frustration*
At the 70% mark, I was panicking a bit. Things were going way too smoothly and I knew something big and bad was about to happen and I was right. Thankfully, while this book does have an open ending, it does not have a cliffhanger.
An excellent MG/lower YA fantasy I would recommend to fans of Intisar Khanani and Shannon Hale.
25 Friday Jul 2014
Posted in friday freebie
Tags
books of the infinite, christian, epic fantasy, fantasy, friday freebie, rj larson, romance, ya, young adult
I’m sorry I don’t have a review for this one. I started it awhile ago, but it’s a really far book and I just felt bad about not having the time to devote to it. But I will read this and in the mean time, you lot can try it out for yourselves.
Ela Roeh of Parne doesn’t understand why her beloved Creator, the Infinite, wants her to become His prophet. She’s undignified and bad-tempered, and at age seventeen she’s much too young. In addition, no prophet of Parne has ever been a girl. Worst of all, as Parne’s elders often warn, if she agrees to become the Infinite’s prophet, Ela knows she will die young.
Yet she can’t imagine living without Him. Determined to hear the Infinite’s voice, Ela accepts the sacred vinewood branch and is sent to bring the Infinite’s word to a nation torn apart by war. There she meets a young ambassador determined to bring his own justice for his oppressed people. As they form an unlikely partnership, Ela battles how to balance the leading of her heart with the leading of the Infinite.
Blurb and cover from Goodreads
18 Friday Jul 2014
Posted in friday freebie, my books
Okay, just humor me on this one. I’m sure you’re all sick of me going on and on about how Fanged Princess is now forever free, but…Fanged Princess is forever free!
I will not let my brother suffer the same loss…
Hadassah’s father, the Vampire King, punished her harshly for her choice to love a human. Now her brother, the only person in the world who still matters to her, has fallen for a human girl. Determined to keep the girl safe, the three of them flee from their home in New England and find themselves cornered with their father’s minions closing in. If they want to escape, their only hope may be to join forces with the mortal enemies of their kind…
Be ensnared in this dark tale of enduring love, revenge, and suspense from teenage author, Elisabeth Wheatley.
Blurb and cover from Goodreads
14 Monday Jul 2014
Posted in review
Tags
alicia michaels, daughter of the red dawn, lost kingdom of fallada, paranormal romance, shifter, werewolf, ya
These are dark times in the land of Fallada, and I fear that they will only continue to grow darker. Only the return of those we’ve lost will even the score.
It will begin with first line of the prophecy, which foretells of a red sun over the desert sky…
–Adrah, Queen of the Fae
On the outside, seventeen year-old Selena McKinley is like any other teenage girl. Yet Selena has always felt as if she doesn’t belong and is counting the days to graduation and her freedom from the small town that makes her feel so out of place, when the arrival of a stranger turns her world upside down. Selena will learn just how different she is and the truth of where she comes from.
A lost princess, they call her, the catalyst for a war involving a world that Selena was taken from as a child. An evil queen obsessed with her own beauty with a plan to enslave the human race.…the notion seems so silly, yet Selena knows in her heart that it is true. Then there is Titus, the shape shifter whose blue eyes and claims of destiny hold her heart captive. Can Selena find the strength to do what she must while following her heart?
Blurb and cover from Goodreads
4 out of 5 stars
I love this series. I read the prequel novella awhile back and finally got around to reading this one. The mythology, the whole “other world” premise, the romance—I am so in love.
The plot:
Okay, so the plot could have been better. I thought the build up of trust between Selena and Titus should have been a little more gradual than it was. I greatly enjoyed the storyline and their romance otherwise, I just wish that aspect had been lengthened out a little bit more.
At the 95% mark, I panicked. It looked like there was going to be cliffhanger or worse, a tragedy. I put down my Kindle and stared at it nervously, kneading a pillow and wondering if Ms. Michaels was going to so thoroughly break my heart as she did with Beyond the Iron Gate. Finally, I picked it up and finished it.
I can’t tell you how it ended, but I’ll just say that while it didn’t explore everything I was hoping it would, I was not disappointed.
The characters:
Selena and Titus were adorable together. Aside from the whole development of trust that I mentioned, I thought their relationship was presented very well. Oh, and the whole “I want our wedding night to be the first time” just made me go *swoon*. (I’m a southern girl and I dig that sort of thing.)
I did not like Zoe. Period. She seemed really shallow to me and I couldn’t stand her. When she left the story, I was ready to throw confetti shouting “good riddance,” but then I don’t usually like the girl’s best friend-type characters. She had a few key point scenes, yet I still wished she’d leave. Sorry, Zo.
Adrah is awesome. She’s like a hardcore, warrior woman version of Galadriel and I liked her just as much.
There were centaurs, spear-wielding fae, werewolves, eccentric German writers and a fantasy world I’d love to visit. I adore this series and I’ll certainly recommend it to anyone looking for a fantasy fairytale!
The next book has a love triangle mentioned in the blurb and I kind of cringed at that. One thing that does make it funny, though, is that it involves a character in this book who is such an arrogant prig and I can’t wait to see him as a lovestruck swain. I’ve adored these books so far and I really, really want to continue the series, so I’m thinking I’ll give it a shot anyway.
Find Daughter of the Red Dawn on Goodreads
Inkspelled Faery 