Cover Runway Sunday

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon! Some are by authors I already enjoy, some are the reason I gave the book a longer look. Either way they're all going to find their way here!

Brody Fair feels like nobody gets him: not his overworked parents, not his genius older brother, and definitely not the girls in the projects set on making his life miserable. Then he meets Nico, an art student who takes Brody to Everland, a “knock-off Narnia" that opens its door at 11:21pm each Thursday for Nico and his band of present-day misfits and miscreants.

Here Brody finds his tribe and a weekly respite from a world where he feels out of place. But when the doors to Everland begin to disappear, Brody is forced to make a decision: He can say goodbye to Everland and to Nico, or stay there and risk never seeing his family again.

HAPPY READING!!

LIFEL1K3 - Review

Author: Jay Kristoff

Genre: Sci-Fi

Format: Hardback

Pages: 402

I've sat on this review for a minute because I needed time to wrap my around a lot of things. Mostly the last few pages where everything sort of just socks you in the gut. But, also I needed to organize my thoughts, because I didn't want to spoil anything major. Bless my roommate for sitting on this and not spoiling the end for me. She managed to read this last year, but sadly I never got around to picking it up. It was well worth the wait, and I'm glad to only have small wait before diving into DEV1AT3. Which will push every other book I'm reading to the bottom of the pile in May.

The best place to start is probably by saying the robot battle at the start of the book totally distracted me from the fact this is Anastasia Romanov re-telling. I was so distracted by robots and Lemon-freaking-Fresh that I missed all signs pointing to that direction, until Zeke showed up. Then I realized what was going on, and I can't believe Jay Kristoff got me attached to an Anastasia Romanov re-telling. I have a lot of reasons why I usually avoid this area of re-telling. The biggest one is a feel like it's one that's sort done a lot, but I'll let you know it's never been done like this. 

Only Jay Kristoff thought robots would make that story more interesting. They did though, because by the time I realized what was happening I was already invested in the story. I couldn't just stop. I needed to make sure Lemon and Cricket survived this book! Because they are precious and needed to be protected at all costs. ALL COSTS!

LIFEL1KE was the first book I've read that was all Jay Kristoff's writing style and all his world building. He did not disappoint me one bit. In fact I'm looking forward to jumping into his other series at some point. Because I'm the world's slowest reader and it takes me ages to get through books. Even ones I loved as much as this one.

As I sit here I'm trying to find something I didn't like about the book, but nothing is honestly coming to mind. Every part of LIFEL1K3 is on point: the world building, the characters, the plot. Yeah, I wasn't overly excited about the Romanov connection, but that's more my hang up than anything else. Once I'd gotten into the heart of the book I stopped caring about that. I was so focused on Eve's journey, on praying Lemon and Cricket make it out alive, and on trying to figure out what terrible thing Zeke was hiding. I knew it was something, he was trying too hard, and I was enjoying how much we kept shooting him. Which he deserved. Every single time.

Cause he's a lying lair who lies.

Before I wrap this up I do want to talk about Eve for a hot second. I was really happy that her character grew the way it did throughout the entire story. Honestly I shouldn't have been surprised, all the characters in the Illuminae Series are solid. But, I still worried a bit as more of Eve's past was unveiled that she was going to turn into some whiny ball of angst trying to figure who she is. Bless Jay Kristoff for not letting that happen. Bless him for having her pull up her big girl pants and realize things sucked, but people wanted them dead and she'd panic later. Because I adore our main character and I didn't want that to change.

I mean she's not Lemon Fresh, but so few of us are.

This book ran me through a gambit of emotions and was so well thought out. I'd love a prequel series one day about War that destroyed the world, or how the people started rebuilding after. There so much I want to know about things that laid up to where we meet Eve. It's all brilliant. In fact if life hadn't of hit in the face so hard I probably would have tore through this book faster than I did. Sadly, I kept getting book blocked life.

I'm super excited for book 2, DEV1AT3, that comes out this May! Excited to see what kind of trouble everyone finds themselves into next, and I'm still worried about Lemon and Cricket. I realize no one is safe in the hands of Jay Kristoff.

Buy, Borrow, or Skip: Whatever gets this books in your hands! It's amazing and my friends have been troopers listening to my gush about this book over the last month that I've been reading it.

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about what we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released, but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate abandon the comforts of suburbia and teaching jobs to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this charming property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. As Helen starts carefully sourcing decorative building materials for her home - wooden beams, mantles, historic bricks -- she starts to unearth, and literally conjure, the tragic lives of Hattie's descendants, three generations of "Breckenridge women," each of whom died amidst suspicion, and who seem to still be seeking something precious and elusive in the present day.

Why I'm Waiting: Because all I could think while reading the plot to this was, this sounds like a bad plan guys. Now I need to know just how bad, because I love horror movies. To which this sounds like the start of one.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

Genre: Young Adult

Series: Stand Alone

Pages: 360

Who do you become when you have nothing left to lose?

There is something Poe Blythe, the seventeen-year-old captain of the Outpost’s last mining ship, wants far more than the gold they tear from the Serpentine River. 

Revenge. 

Poe has vowed to annihilate the river raiders who robbed her of everything two years ago. But as she navigates the treacherous waters of the Serpentine and realizes there might be a traitor among her crew, she must also reckon with who she has become, who she wants to be, and the ways love can change and shape you. Even—and especially—when you think all is lost.

Ally Condie, the international bestselling author of the Matched trilogy, returns with an intricately crafted and emotionally gripping story of one young woman’s journey to move beyond the grief and anger that control her and find the inner strength to chart her own course.

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon! Some are by authors I already enjoy, some are the reason I gave the book a longer look. Either way they're all going to find their way here!

A PIRATE WITH A WILL OF IRON
Teriana is the second mate of the Quincense, a ship beholden to the Goddess of the Seas. Her people are born of the waves, and they alone know how to cross the impassable oceans between East and West. 

A SOLDIER WITH A SECRET
Marcus is the commander of the Thirty-Seventh, the notorious legion that has led the Celendor Empire to conquer the entire East. The legion is his only family, and even they don't know the secret he's been hiding since childhood.

A DANGEROUS QUEST
When a power-hungry ruler captures Teriana's crew and threatens to reveal Marcus's secret unless they help him conquer the unknown West, the two are forced into an unlikely–and unwilling– alliance. They unite for the sake of their families, but both must decide how far they are willing to go, and how much they are willing to sacrifice.

HAPPY READING!!

Mini Reviews

Holy freaking cow! I knew there would be a double cross before the end of this story, but I wasn't honestly expecting it to be that. However, it felt fitting and I'm very satisfied with how everything was tied up. I'm glad certain things didn't happen, because Tao is precious and needs to be protected at all costs. Every box I wanted to get ticked off, in fact got hit. Plus there was a train heist. Who doesn't love a little train heist. The entire was well thought out and was brilliantly laid out. I know I should have read this as soon as I received it from the Kickstarter, but this is one of those series I wasn't ready to say good-by to. As it turns out I don't have. Silver is coming back! When? No idea, but you bet your butts I'll be keeping an eye out for the new series. 

Being a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, it's not surprise that this caught my eye this weekend at Comic-Con. I'm always on the look out for new re-tellings of canon, new twists to old favorites. Major Holmes and Captain Watson is more of a continuation of canon. Sheffield Holmes is the nephew of the great Sherlock Holmes. He's been charged with solving the crime of gruesome murder that's more than it seemed. I really enjoyed this. Watson is hands down my favorite character in canon, and love Captain Watson. She sees your social norms and walks right on past them. Sheffield has the skill of his Uncle, but has a little more charm than his Uncle. I feel like this was a great start to what could be an amazing series. I'm excited to see what Issue #2 does to continue the plot looming over London.

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about what we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released, but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

All love stories are ghost stories in disguise.

When famed Byronesque poet Hugh de Bonne is discovered dead of a heart attack in his bath one morning, his cousin Robert Highstead, a historian turned post-mortem photographer, is charged with a simple task: transport Hugh's remains for burial in a chapel. This chapel, a stained glass folly set on the moors of Shropshire, was built by de Bonne sixteen years earlier to house the remains of his beloved wife and muse, Ada. Since then, the chapel has been locked and abandoned, a pilgrimage site for the rabid fans of de Bonne's last book, The Lost History of Dreams.

However, Ada's grief-stricken niece refuses to open the glass chapel for Robert unless he agrees to her bargain: before he can lay Hugh to rest, Robert must record Isabelle's story of Ada and Hugh's ill-fated marriage over the course of five nights.

As the mystery of Ada and Hugh's relationship unfolds, so does the secret behind Robert's own marriage--including that of his fragile wife, Sida, who has not been the same since the tragic accident three years ago, and the origins of his own morbid profession that has him seeing things he shouldn't--things from beyond the grave.

Why I'm Waiting: I'm a sucker for a good Gothic sounding novel.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

Genre: Re-telling

Series: Stand Alone

Pages: 480

Robin of Locksley is dead.

Maid Marian doesn’t know how she’ll go on, but the people of Locksley town, persecuted by the Sheriff of Nottingham, need a protector. And the dreadful Guy of Gisborne, the Sheriff’s right hand, wishes to step into Robin’s shoes as Lord of Locksley andMarian’s fiancé.

Who is there to stop them?

Marian never meant to tread in Robin’s footsteps—never intended to stand as a beacon of hope to those awaiting his triumphant return. But with a sweep of his green cloak and the flash of her sword, Marian makes the choice to become her own hero: Robin Hood.

HAPPY READING!!

Emerald City Comic-Con

My third ECCC is in the books. A huge thank you to my boss for my tickets this year. Despite the how crazy my job gets some days, I really do love where a work. Plus, this year I got to take my flatmate to her first Comic-Con. I think she had a good time. It looked like she had a good day. As for me, I had a blast. The people watching is always prime at Comic-Con, and love seeing everyone in their cosplay. It's a level of skill I will never come close to mastering.

I poked around a lot of the book booths. Because let's be honest, it's one of my favorite parts. Sadly, this year due to having several trips planned, I was on a budget. So a lot of things went on my TBR, but sadly I couldn't bring them home with me. However, there was a handful of things that I talked myself into. Which, honestly didn't talk all that much convincing in the end. Especially since I knew that Wes Craig was already happening. Same with meeting Ian Somerhaulder. 

Managed to snagged a bomb print of from the Silver series  which I found my first year at ECCC and just finished this series this week. The review for the last book is coming soon along with the review from the two other comic I picked up. 

I'm not sure if I'll be going to ECCC next year despite how much I've enjoyed it the last years. Next year I might be headed back to my state to go to Planet Comic-Con with my dad. Which I'm pretty excited for, and hope we manage to iron out the kinks to the plan. That convention falls close to his birthday, so it would be great to be able to get to home and celebrate that with him.

Anyone else go to ECCC this weekend? Pick up any good reads??

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon! Some are by authors I already enjoy, some are the reason I gave the book a longer look. Either way they're all going to find their way here!

The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…

A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger management issues
A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering

And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.

They're not the heroes we deserve. They're just the ones we could find. Nobody panic.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Thursday

Yup, you read that right. It's Thursday and I'm celebrating a new book release! Even though I'm a book and half behind in the series because I'm probably the world's slowest reader when it comes to ebooks, I'm still really excited about this series. I've been following Ben Galley's Twitter for a while, but for some only recently picked one of his books. As usual with things like this, I shouldn't have waited. Despite how long it's taking me to get through this book, I'm really enjoying it. So I'm excited to say the third, and final, book is out today!

Genre: Grimdark Fantasy

Series: Chasing Graves Trilogy

Pages: 357

The battle for the emperor’s throne grows ever fiercer. The City of Countless Souls cowers behind locked doors as the whims of the downtrodden and the powerful bring the great game of Araxes to its chaotic conclusion.

With the soulblade at his hip and magic in his soul, Caltro’s freedom is almost within reach. But as Temsa reign of murder clashes with Widow Horix’s plans, the locksmith’s fate becomes all the more entwined with the needs of dead gods, the Cult, and vengeful royals. Caltro realizes his struggle is not just for his redemption, but for that of the entirety of the Far Reaches.

While the Core Districts descend into chaos, debts left unpaid in the desert haunt Nilith’s long-awaited arrival in the city. A new foe is hunting her through the streets, an enemy with enough power to rival even that of the Cloudpiercer. 

And yet all their struggles pale in comparison to the dark omen that is spreading through the Arctian Empire:

The River Nyx is drying up.

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about what we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released, but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

The Skyr is a rich, verdant land claimed by both halflings and gnomes. For centuries, the halflings have worked to undermine gnomish power structures and seize total control--through legal means, certainly, but more insidiously through their extensive organized crime network. Now, threatened with being pushed out entirely, the gnomes are desperate and ready to fight back. Gustave the Goat King faces his first test as a leader: Can he bring peace to a fraught region or will a civil war consume the entire kingdom?

Why I'm Waiting: Because I loved the first book, Kill the Farmboy! 

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

Genre: NonFiction

Series: Stand Alone

Pages: 400

The Trial of Lizzie Borden tells the true story of one of the most sensational murder trials in American history. When Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally hacked to death in Fall River, Massachusetts, in August 1892, the arrest of the couple’s younger daughter Lizzie turned the case into international news and her trial into a spectacle unparalleled in American history. Reporters flocked to the scene. Well-known columnists took up conspicuous seats in the courtroom. The defendant was relentlessly scrutinized for signs of guilt or innocence. Everyone—rich and poor, suffragists and social conservatives, legal scholars and laypeople—had an opinion about Lizzie Borden’s guilt or innocence. Was she a cold-blooded murderess or an unjustly persecuted lady? Did she or didn’t she?

The popular fascination with the Borden murders and its central enigmatic character has endured for more than one hundred years. Immortalized in rhyme, told and retold in every conceivable genre, the murders have secured a place in the American pantheon of mythic horror, but one typically wrenched from its historical moment. In contrast, Cara Robertson explores the stories Lizzie Borden’s culture wanted and expected to hear and how those stories influenced the debate inside and outside of the courtroom. Based on transcripts of the Borden legal proceedings, contemporary newspaper accounts, unpublished local accounts, and recently unearthed letters from Lizzie herself, The Trial of Lizzie Borden offers a window onto America in the Gilded Age, showcasing its most deeply held convictions and its most troubling social anxieties.

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon! Some are by authors I already enjoy, some are the reason I gave the book a longer look. Either way they're all going to find their way here!

In 1942, the Allies were losing, Germany seemed unstoppable, and every able man in England was fighting. Churchill believed Britain was locked in an existential battle and created a secret agency, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), whose spies were trained in everything from demolition to sharp-shooting. Their job, he declared, was "to set Europe ablaze!" But with most men on the frontlines, the SOE did something unprecedented: it recruited women. Thirty-nine women answered the call, leaving their lives and families to become saboteurs in France. Half were caught, and a third did not make it home alive.

In D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose draws on recently declassified files, diaries, and oral histories to tell the story of three of these women. There's Odette Sansom, a young mother who feels suffocated by domestic life and sees the war as her ticket out; Lise de Baissac, an unflappable aristocrat with the mind of a natural leader; and Andrée Borrel, the streetwise organizer of the Paris Resistance. Together, they derailed trains, blew up weapons caches, destroyed power and phone lines, and gathered crucial intelligence—laying the groundwork for the D-Day invasion that proved to be the turning point in the war. Stylishly written and rigorously researched, this is an inspiring story for our own moment of resistance, in which women continue to play a vital role. 

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about what we have yet to read. Generally they are books that have yet to be released, but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.

A girl who can speak to gods must save her people without destroying herself.

A prince in danger must decide who to trust.

A boy with a monstrous secret waits in the wings. 

Together, they must assassinate the king and stop the war.

In a centuries-long war where beauty and brutality meet, their three paths entwine in a shadowy world of spilled blood and mysterious saints, where a forbidden romance threatens to tip the scales between dark and light. Wicked Saints is the thrilling start to Emily A. Duncan’s devastatingly Gothic Something Dark and Holy trilogy..

Why I'm Waiting: This books sounds brilliant. It's one of my most anticipated books of this year!