Tuesday 19 February 2013

Blog Tour: Promo Post -- Focus by Alyssa Rose Ivy

Focus

Title: Focus
Author: Alyssa Rose Ivy
Series: The Crescent Chronicles (2)
Publisher: Self-published
Release Date: 23 January 2013

Freshman year of college is hard even when you're not tied to the future king of a supernatural society.

Allie dives into college head first with Hailey as her roommate and the city of New Orleans as her backyard. As things within The Society heat up, Allie realizes that whether she’s with Levi or not, she's in far too deep to turn back.


Excerpt
I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the dull ache inside that made me want to reach out and touch
him. He took advantage, but really I left myself open.

His lips met mine as his arm wrapped around my shoulder, turning me toward him. A voice in my
head told me to cut him off, but I ignored it. He pushed to deepen the kiss, and I let my resistance fall
away. He leaned into me, moving me so I was lying down. I felt his weight shift on top of me, his lips
moving to my neck and trailing downward. I snapped myself out of it. Kissing Levi was a really bad idea.

“Stop!” I pushed against his chest. He didn’t respond at first, but he reluctantly moved to let me sit
up. “What the hell was that?”

He grinned. “Don’t say you didn’t want that.”

“Don’t look so proud of yourself. It’s never happening again.” I straightened my hair out with my
fingers, trying to get rid of the evidence.

“So about tonight?”

“What about it?” I snapped.

“What do you want to do?” He sat up, still looking way too proud of himself.

“I’m going to a party with Hailey. She says all the freshman will be there.”

“Please tell me you aren’t talking about Disorientation, are you?”

“Yeah, I think that’s what it’s called.”

He shook his head. “No way. You’re not going!”

As if on cue, the door started to open. “Are you two decent in there?” Jared yelled obnoxiously.

I groaned “Of course, we are.”

Hailey and the boys pushed into the room.

“Are you sure about that?” Owen asked.

I probably blushed wondering what evidence still existed. I followed his gaze and realized my tank
top was pulled up on one side. Levi pulled it down before I could, letting his hand graze my skin in the
process. The goose bumps that formed were completely coincidental—or so I told myself.


About the Author

Alyssa Rose Ivy is a Young Adult and New Adult author who loves to weave stories with romance and a southern setting. Although raised in the New York area, she fell in love with the South after moving to New Orleans for college. After years as a perpetual student, she turned back to her creative side and decided to write. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and two young children, and she can usually be found with a cup of coffee in her hand.
Follow Alyssa at:
Blog         *         Facebook          *       Twitter           *         Goodreads



 

Monday 11 February 2013

Blog Tour: Promo -- Dark Promise by Julia Crane & Talia Jager

Dark Promise

Title: Dark Promise
Author: Julia Crane & Talia Jager
Publisher: Valknut Press, LLC
Release Date: 28 July 2012

Rylie has it all - great friends, dream boy, loving family. But on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, her perfect little world shatters. A stranger claiming to be her real mother appears with a secret: Rylie is a faery whose powers will be unleashed on her birthday. Captured and forced into a new life, Rylie struggles to keep everything she loves and discovers a terrifying truth: some promises cannot be broken.

Excerpt

In the years to come, Azura had watched Rylie grow up from a distance. Although giving her up had been the hardest thing Azura had ever done, it only mattered that her daughter was safe.

However, now that was about to change. Once Rylie’s transformation was complete, other faeries would be able to see that she was a faery, too. After they saw the birthmark, they’d know she wasn’t just any faery, but an Aurorian faery—and that put her in danger.

Azura had to go to her daughter and warn her of what was to come…but how?




About the Authors


Julia crane is the author of the Coexist: Keegan’s Chronicles. She has a bachelors degree in criminal justice. Julia has believed in magical creatures since the day her grandmother first told her an Irish tale. Growing up her mother greatly encouraged reading and using your imagination. Although she’s spent most of her life on the US east coast, she currently lives in Dubai with her husband and three children.


Talia JagerFollow Julia at:

Blog                   Twitter            Facebook



Follow Talia at:

Blog                            Twitter                      Facebook


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Saturday 9 February 2013

Review -- Blaze by Laurie Boyle Crompton

Blaze

Title: Blaze (or Love in the Time of Supervillains)
Author: Laurie Boyle Crompton
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Release Date: 01 February 2013
Date Read: December 2012
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Blaze is tired of spending her life on the sidelines, drawing comics and feeling invisible. She's desperate for soccer star Mark to notice her. And when her BFF texts Mark a photo of Blaze in sexy lingerie, it definitely gets his attention. After a hot date in the back of her minivan, Blaze is flying high, but suddenly Mark's feelings seem to have been blasted by a freeze-ray gun, and he dumps her. Blaze gets her revenge by posting a comic strip featuring uber-villain Mark the Shark. Mark then retaliates by posting her "sext" photo, and, overnight, Blaze goes from Super Virgin Girl to Super Slut. That life on the sidelines is looking pretty good right about now...



I really wanted to like this book. I wanted to love it. Nerdy girl + good moral + light, fun writing = Fantastic read. Right? Maybe, but not with Blaze.

The biggest problem I had was with characters, mainly the title character herself, Blaze. I was so frustrated with her. Blaze's narrative is annoying and I wasn't a big fan of the fact that half of her stream of consciousness was about Mark, how she can be his girlfriend (for the first half) and how much she hates him (second half). The decisions she's made are one of the stupidest and most immature I've ever encountered in YA. I might've felt bad for her but her head was just shoved so far up her ass that there was no way she would've been able to see the light.

Her friends weren't any better either, both felt very one-dimensional. Terri was the awesome best friend that stuck with her until the very end and Amanda was the jealous, petty bitch that started Blaze's problems. Blaze kept blaming Amanda for sending Mark the sext, and sure she was horrible for doing that, but Blaze was the one who made the decision to sleep with Mark. Her brother already told her that Mark was a womanizer. She knew what she was doing. Do not put the blame on anyone else but yourself, Blaze.

There was so much slut shaming in the book as well. I understand the purpose of it considering the issues tackled but I felt like this wasn't quite clear during some scenes. Blaze, Amanda and Terri participated a lot in shaming Catherine Wiggles, the school's slut, especially towards the beginning of the novel. You know how the rumour mill works, wild stories are accepted as truth and no one questions them. This was addressed later on in the novel when Blaze herself receives the same animosity she handed to Catherine. Blaze has a talk with Catherine and I thought this would improve her character. She now knows what it feels like to be hated for making one mistake. I thought she would change her perception for Catherine. Here's the one person who knew exactly what she was going through and vice versa, yet Blaze choose to continue being a bitch to Catherine and call her the exact names others have been calling her. I guess she does get better but I thought it should've happened sooner.

Blaze also had problems with her dad. He left her and her mom and brother to pursue his dream of being an actor. They hated him for it. Which I can understand but I thought the animosity was a bit too much. I'm sure if they had parted on better terms, the dad would've been more able to have a good relationship with Blaze and brother, and they could've been more supportive of his dreams. I would feel like crap knowing my dad does a job he hates because I'm standing in the way of him fulfilling his dream. Parents had dreams once, too, and circumstances that, lets be honest, most likely involves you just put a stop on them getting a real go at it. I didn't like how it was finally resolved between all parties. This is a serious matter and I felt like it was made fun of so easily.

For what it's worth, I did enjoy the comic book references. Sure, I'm not a big expert on it but I knew enough to understand what she was talking about. I liked Comic Book Guy, Quentin, as well. He is Blaze's true love interest. Their romance progressed nice and slowly. They didn't even have anything concrete by the end of the book. They were comfortable with each other, making each other laugh, having inside jokes. It was super cute when they geeked out about the characters, plots and different editions. It was refreshing compared to the other relationships featured in the book.

I would say this had a lot of potential to be something really enjoyable and fun, while delivering some serious morals. But it just didn't quite cut it for me. I still would recommend it, though. I think others might enjoy it a lot more than I did.

An ARC was received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Tuesday 5 February 2013

Top Ten Tuesday: Down the Memory Lane


Top Ten Tuesday
Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the girls over at The Broke and The Bookish. This meme feature features a different theme every week, showcasing book-related lists. And hey, who doesn't love a good list?
I wasn't going to post something today at all but the topic was too awesome. We are indebted to books and authors and reading for giving us the chance to create memories. Books have literally changed our lives. We've made new friends and opened up a whole new world that I personally couldn't have imagined existed in the first place.

This week's Top Ten:
Bookish Memories

Thanks, Harry
Harry Potter has a special spot in all our hearts. I came a year late to the party but I guess it was ok since I didn't have to do any waiting for the release of the books. It was one of the first books I had read when I started reading in the first place and it got me hooked to reading. It was with this series that it came clear to me why people liked reading. I laughed, I cried and felt just about every and all emotions during this series, which was just mind-boggling to my eleven year old brain. Who knew reading was so much fun? My naive self certainly didn't. At the time, I felt like I needed to shout to the world that reading was great, like it was some monumental discovery I had made and the world must know. Pfft. Like I wasn't the last to the party. 


Dumbledore died

So I had to split this into two because this is a legit story. Book 6- Snape had just killed Dumbledore, I was in denial and weeping, but then it came time to the funeral and he really was dead. I was a mess. Anyway, when I read it, I was alone in the house so I didn't have anybody to unload all my feels. Thinking it was a great idea, I call my dad in his office. He picks up the phone to me crying my heart out, I could barely breathe. Naturally, he went into panic mode and thought our house burned down. He asks me if everything was alright then I literally wailed into the phone, "Dumbledore dieeeeeed!", hanged up and proceeded to cry all in my lonesome. I got an earful about it when he came home, how I nearly gave him a heart attack and I should never do that again and blah blah blah. I was still too upset to pay much attention to whatever he was saying.

That memory always bring a smile to my face.


Library hopping

I love my library. I don't have money for books so libraries are a godsend. I was still all new to reading and libraries and whatnot so I didn't know that you could request books online and the branches that had copies could send it to your local branch for you to pick up. I didn't know that. You know what we did? My dad and I checked which branch the books were available at and drove there. Some of it ages away but we went anyway. We ended up visiting so many libraries and it was real fun to see what the other branches looked like. I do everything online now but I'd love to do it again. Also, it reinforced my love for my local library because seriously all the other ones were too loud with too many five-year olds, too quiet with old people, their stocks too small and their layout too confusing. My library is not the biggest or the most cool looking but it's seriously the best.


Seriously, my library is the best
They held this competition for teenagers a while back. You earn points by reading and reviewing as much books as you can. Hah! Needless to say, I won twice in a row. I got an iPod and a bunch of DVD sets. Shame they stopped doing it...
It's my library card. It's the one for kids but I don't care. It's not a dinosaur (although that would be super cool). It's a tuatara. But I'm pretty sure they're cousins so it's still super cool.
Sharing the passion

One of our favourite things to do as book lovers is to share our love for books. We all love giving recommendations. It's just unfortunate that I don't know many people in real life who liked reading. But I finally convinced one if my best friends (doesn't like to read) to read The Book Thief (all-time favourite). I was super scared that she wouldn't like it. Sure it's amazing and the best thing ever, but it's not exactly the easiest thing to read if you're not a reader in the first place. But, good news, everyone! She loves it and pretty much all the other books I loved and recommended to her. She passed the test and it doesn't matter so much that she doesn't quite have the same passion for books as I do because she loves all my favourite ones.



Year 10 Social Studies Class, also known as, the class where we did nothing but fangirl about books


I had Social Studies with one of the few friends I had that read and it was the most boring hour of the day. How did we pass the time? We sat at the back corner and talked and fangirled about books for the whole hour, every day. We had all these games and competitions about Harry Potter, reminisced about that part that made us bawl like a baby (the whole of book 7), tried to list all characters mentioned in the series during a particularly dull lesson. We also both loved Percy Jackson so when Son of Neptune came out, we read the book together, me finishing it in two days while I chastised her for dragging it out and reading slower. We spent a lot time discussing Mark of Athena and what would happen with the camps and the prophecies. The most sleep-inducing lesson of the day ended up being the one I looked forward to the most. It was great. Oh, but don't worry. (You probably weren't) we passed the class with flying colours.
 I haven't gone to any author meets or cons before because I live on the other side of the world and I don't even know New Zealand authors. But I'm going to meet an author and other bloggers and go to BEA if it's the last thing I do.

What are your bookish memories? Share them with me on the comments!

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