Savor by Kate Evangelista

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Author's

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Book summary: 

Mature and explicit content. Not recommended for readers below 18-years-old. Yup, you've got to be that old to read my story. Consider yourself warned.
I’m Dakota Collins, a tough talking, eye patch wearing, workaholic photography student. Why am I important? Well, maybe because I get to spend an entire month with Vicious, only the sickest indie rock band out there.
You see, I needed a subject for my Spring Showcase introspective in order to graduate. During a chance encounter at a club I’d been sent to cover for the Daily Gossip, our ironically named college paper, the features writer I usually teamed up with introduced me to the band—by accident, I might add. It involved a run in with a scary, bald bodyguard. Anyway, long story short, I signed a contract to take pictures of Vicious.
I should have known their handsome yet way too serious for his own good bassist, Luka Visraya, wouldn't be able to keep his hands to himself. He’s gorgeous and all, but the way he smiles spelled trouble with a capital L. I’m in for a long month with him around.
Crazy shit happens and then some. So, if you want the skinny on Vicious and the events revolving around my stay at Lunar Manor, read my story.
Again, refer to the warning above.

          First of I shall start with the cover. Kate Evangelista's books never fail when it comes to the covers. All that I've seen and read had this amazing art on them. But for me the best thing is that they're always connected to the story itself. So, yes this beautiful dress appears in the story.

         But we'll get to that. At the start we meet Dakota our main character in this story. She is a photography student who has a great eye for a photography and extraordinary talent, but she manages that with one eye only as she always wears eye patch. Once for the project she must do for her school newspaper, she gets to take photos of Vicious, the band that's been on the top of every music chart. When she sees the potential she never fails to chase it. So she decided to go all in and ask them to be her models for her final school project, with that she knows if she goes thing rightly, many doors will open for her. Once she gets them to accept her offer she finds her self in different world one that she doesn't know much about. Only how far will she go and how much is she willing to sacrifice.

         Firstly Dakota is a character that I grew to admire through this book. She is independent, strong-willed young woman who takes care of herself. Well until she meats Luka, the bassist of Vicious who is hard to resist I must say. He is a rockstar so what else do I have to say. It was great to see how conflicted the two of them were and how Luka was more complicated than you'd thought. Secondly you already get an excerpt of the writing from the blurb and I must say it fits Dakota's character fully.

        There are some things that made me gave this book fours star even though it was truly addicting. Mostly this is the was Ms Evangelista always works with her series and that's it doesn't offer you answers. Not all of them for the matter. You're usually left with many unanswered questions at the end. I'm used to it, to some extend. From one point it's great cause it makes you want more, but then again agony is an old friend of mine who I still haven't grown to love.

         Now, I'm eagerly waiting for more.

Rating: 4 stars. 

In case you're in need for the second opinion you can check Glass' review for this book. Head over to Way Too Hot Books. 

Until the next time,

***NOTE: Copy of this book was kindly provided by the author, Kate Evangelista. Thank you! 

I'm not paid for writing this review - I do it as a lover of written word. All opinions are personal. 

Waiting on Wednesday (#78)

You know the story. This is a meme created by Breaking the Spine and every week we pick books we're waiting for. Here are our picks for this week.

Glass' pick

The past will always find you.

Jos Archer was the girl with the perfect life; until the night it all came crashing down around her. Now, nine months later, she still hasn't begun to pick up the pieces. Even transferring to a new college and living under the watchful eye of her older sister, Renee, isn't enough to help her feel normal again.

And then she meets Dusty Sharp. For reasons Jos can't begin to fathom, the newly reformed campus bad boy seems determined to draw her out of her shell. And if she's not careful, his knowing green eyes and wicked smile will make her feel things she's no longer sure she deserves.

But even as Dusty coaxes Jos to open up about the past, he's hiding secrets of his own. Secrets about the night her old life fell apart. When the truth is finally revealed, will it bring them closer together;or tear them apart for good?

Expected publication: January 28th, 2014

Tanja's pick

Ember Miller and Chase Jennings are ready to stop running. After weeks spent in hiding as two of the Bureau of Reformation’s most wanted criminals, they have finally arrived at the safe house, where they hope to live a peaceful and quiet existence—but all that’s left is smoking ruins.

Devastated by the demolition of their last hope, Ember and Chase follow the one thing left to them—tracks leading away from the wreckage. The only sign that there may have been survivors.

Because of their high profiles, they know they can’t stay out in the open for long. They take shelter in the wilderness and amid the ruins of abandoned cities as they follow the tracks down the coast, eventually finding refugees from the destroyed safe house. Among them is someone from Chase’s past—someone he thought he’d never see again.

Banding together, they search for a place to hide, aiming for a settlement a few of them have heard about… a settlement that is rumored to house the nebulous organization known as Three. The very group that has provided Ember with a tiny ray of hope ever since she was first forced on the run.

Three is responsible for the huge network of underground safe houses and resistance groups across the country. And they may offer Ember her only chance to tell the world her story—and to fight back.

Expected publication: February 11th, 2014

We'd love to see your picks so feel free to link them up.

Until the next time,

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten 2014 Debuts I'm Excited For

Hello all. It's another Tuesday and that means another TTT post. It's as always a meme created by girls at The Broke and the Bookish and our topic for today is top ten 2014 debuts. I don't have ten, as I'm still discovering all the books that are about to come out, but here are some:

As always I'd love to see your picks so leave your links in comments below.

Until the next time,

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Find the book:

Amazon / Barnes and Noble / The Book Depository

Connect with autor:

Website / Twitter / Facebook / Goodreads

My rating: 5++

Book summary:

"Cath is a Simon Snow fan.
Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . .
But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.
Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.
Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.
Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.
For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?
Or will she just go on living inside somebody else’s fiction?"

“To really be a nerd, she'd decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one.”

      Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell is a must-read for every girl who consider herself a true bookworm. Why? Because all of us can find a little bit of ourselves in main protagonist, Cath. (And maybe even in her twin sister Wren.) This coming of age story about sisters, reading, first love, finding your own identity is a one of those I'll put on list of the books I'll want my (hypothetical) daughter to read one day.

      Story starts with Cath who is settling in her dorm room and she is pretty much freaked with the unknown. Silent, shy girl who spent her whole life being one of the twins, now have to figure out who she is just as Cath, without her more outgoing sister Wren. Whole thing about sisters is one of the most relatable parts for me. I do not have twin, my sister is four years younger, but I recognized so much of our own relationship in Cath and Wren's. Rainbow Rowell doesn't try to sugarcoat sibling's interaction, it's simply real life. You love each other because you just don't know how not to love your sister no matter how much she can piss you off sometimes. Then comes time when you realize that both of you have this whole other life which doesn't include your sister. And it weird. You find out things that shock you and surprise you. In the end you get used to it. You learn to accept that you have each other, but that still you have your own, separate lives.

“I don’t just kiss people. Kisses aren’t … just with me.”

      Other thing that made this book my all time favorite is swoon worthy romance and a kind of boyfriend every girl deserves to have. He makes mistakes, but he's also considerate, always there when you need him, gentle and smart. He can act like douche sometimes, but he always finds a way to make it up to the girl he loves. I fell in love in Levi after every next page, I was mad at him for being an idiot but, let's face it, that is real life guy's logic (I believe you all know which scene I'm talking about). I loved Cath and how level headed she was. And I love her for being a girl who wants to make a fact of kissing someone being really big thing.

“Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy,” Wren said. “It’s the noblest, like, the most courageous thing two people can shoot for.” 

        Fangirl has one of the most interesting premise I've stumbled upon in my reads lately. Fanfiction is a major issue in the reading community - some people like it, others hate it and there are those who find fanfic as stealing other people's work. I am not against it, I read my fair share of fanfics and I understand a need to stay in your favorite fictional world for just a little while. Rainbow Rowell had done amazing work with making it part of Cath's characterisation and in the same time giving her thoughts about reading from her own experience of being a reader. 

Who should read Fangirl?

      All of you who are craving for truly amazing books that will be part of you for the rest of your life and you'd want to buy ten different editions of novel just so you can read every singe one of them to find out if you had missed something previous time. All of you who want your children to read something that will make them a better person. And everyone who loves books.

 Happy reading,

2014 YA Contemporary Challenge

Well I thought I already joined all the challenges I intended to join but then I've seen this post by Montana @The Book Bells and well here I'm. Another challenge I'll fail to keep track of (I'm truly sorry but my brain omits that kind of information). Anyhow I keep telling that contemporary isn't my thing, but then I've seen some interesting book that are coming our this year so why not try.

I don't have exact list which I'll go by, but here are some I'm planing to tackle:

1. No Once Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale
2. Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira
3. The Impossible Knife of Memory by Lauren Halse Anderson
4. And We Stay by Jenny Hubbard
5. Panic by Lauren Oliver
6. The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith
7. Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins
8....to be added.

We'll see how this goes but thanks to the girls for hosting this!

Until the next time,

The Rising by Terra Harmony

Buy the book at 

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Smashwords

Author's

Website / Facebook / Twitter

Book summary: 

Fifteen-year-old Serena is the youngest member of a dying race. The increasing acidity of the ocean is destroying her home, slowly eating away at the once thriving underwater landscape. But since the night of Serena’s birth, it is an outside force that most threatens their dwindling population. Werewolves, who once served as protectors for mermaids in the Kingdom of the Undine, now seek to eliminate all who dwell in the ocean — and Serena is about to find herself right in the middle of the deadly conflict.
Given the title of Werewolf Liaison, Serena is determined to make things right for her people. When she ventures to The Dry, she meets Liam, the werewolf with hazel eyes, and her whole world gets turned upside down. As Serena discovers the real history between werewolves and mermaids, she is left wondering who her true enemies are.

         It's no secret that I'm a huge fan on Akasha series by this author, and once she announced that she was writing a book about mermaids I was thrilled. Honestly for some unknown reason I have read maybe a couple of books with mermaids in them. Why? I have no idea. At the end I only wish this book was more enjoyable for me so I'd gladly pick another mermaid book, but sadly that's not what happened.

         We shall start from beginning here. This is a story about Serena, the youngest member of a dying race. Fifteen years ago a massacre happened where many of her race were killed and the hate between her race and their enemies werewolves went deeper and deeper. The history between these two races goes way in the past and once they were protectors of one another, but then everything changed that night. Now mermaids are close to their elimination and without being able to go on the surface they're not able to create more of their race. When Serena is given a task to go on the surface she is determined to make things right. Things are getting harder to cope with and soon enough the conflict reached its peak.

         When I started reading this story I though I would give up. The beginning is really slow and with so many descriptions it was hard to read more than a page or two a day. But I pushed myself to go on and honestly I'm happy for that. Because later this series gets more interesting.

          Not only slow pace at the start was an issue to me, also the Serena's character was hard to connect to. But that's my fault as the is too young for my liking. At some points here actions were a bit frustrating to me, but honestly I'd probably support her all the way if I had read this few years ago.

          All in all, it was a really interesting story, but slow pace and main character weren't something I enjoyed that much.

Rating: 3 stars. 

Until the next time,

***NOTE: Copy of this book was kindly provided by the author, Terra Harmony. Thank you. 
I'm not paid for writing this review - I do it as a lover of written word. All opinions are personal.

Waiting on Wednesday (#77)

You know the story. This is a meme created by Breaking the Spine and every week we pick books we're waiting for. Here are our picks for this week.

Glass' pick

Kira, Samm, and Marcus fight to prevent a final war between Partials and humans in the gripping final installment in the Partials Sequence, a series that combines the thrilling action of The Hunger Games with the provocative themes of Blade Runner and The Stand.

There is no avoiding it—the war to decide the fate of both humans and Partials is at hand. Both sides hold in their possession a weapon that could destroy the other, and Kira Walker has precious little time to prevent that from happening. She has one chance to save both species and the world with them, but it will only come at great personal cost.

Expected publication: March 11th, 2014

Tanja's pick

When you don’t know who you are, how can you decide who you want to be?

Kyla was Slated: her mind wiped clean by the oppressive Lorder government. When forbidden memories of a violent past began to surface, so did doubts: could she trust those she had come to care for, like Ben? Helped by friends in MIA, she goes undercover, searching for her past and evading the authorities who want her dead. But the truth Kyla desperately seeks is more shocking than she ever imagined. 

Expected publication: March 6th, 2014

We'd love to see your picks so feel free to link them up.

Until the next time,

ARC Review: The Almost Girl by Amalie Howard

Buy the book at 

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / The Book Depository

Author's 

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Book summary:

Seventeen-year-old Riven is as tough as they come. But coming from a world ravaged by a devastating android war, she has to be. There’s no room for softness, no room for emotion, no room for mistakes. A Legion General, she is the right hand of the young Prince of Neospes, a parallel universe to Earth. In Neospes, she has everything: rank, responsibility and respect. But when Prince Cale sends her away to find his long-lost brother, Caden, who has been spirited back to modern day Earth, Riven finds herself in uncharted territory.

Thrown out of her comfort zone but with the mindset of a soldier, Riven has to learn how to be a girl in a realm that is the opposite of what she knows.  Riven isn’t prepared for the beauty of a world that is unlike her own in so many ways. Nor is she prepared to feel something more than indifference for the very target she seeks. Caden is nothing like Cale, but he makes something in her come alive, igniting a spark deep down that goes against every cell in her body. For the first time in her life, Riven isn’t sure about her purpose, about her calling. Torn between duty and desire, she must decide whether Caden is simply a target or whether he is something more.

Faced with hideous reanimated Vector soldiers from her own world with agendas of their own, as well as an unexpected reunion with a sister who despises her, it is a race against time to bring Caden back to Neospes. But things aren’t always as they seem, and Riven will have to search for truth. Family betrayals and royal coups are only the tip of the iceberg. Will Riven be able to find the strength to defy her very nature? Or will she become the monstrous soldier she was designed to be?

         Recently almost all dystopian novels that I've read had something in common. That is the reality of the story which at the same time thrills me because of all the ideas and scares the hell out of me because of the possibility of these ideas coming true. This one is no exception.

         Parallel universes have been something that's been fairly popular nowadays and the story here is based on that. Parallel with out world is another world called Neospes, but that universe is way ahead of us when it comes to technology. Their is so advanced that androids are part of the human world and after the android war this universe is in troubles. The only way to save it to secure the monarchy and the only way to do it to go into our world and find Caden. That mission is one that Riven's assigned to and as the best fighter in her world she is not familiar with failure. For the first time she is thrown into unknown and she must fight something she is not familiar with.

        The whole idea of a world where technology is so advanced fascinated me so much, the way the technology became a part of people and with everything going on today it's something that doesn't seem that unbelievable. Riven, our main character here is neatly characterized. She is trained fighter and with some other things about her it's so interesting to see how she adopts to our world and most of all to emotions. Not only those towards Caden, but other people as well. Then there is Caden, a boy that's easy to fall for. Basically this has got everything I could ask for.

        Probably the only thing that I wished was more developed was the past of Neospes. I'm still really curious about it. Was it once as ours is now? I hope I'll find my answers in the next book.

Rating: 4.5 stars.

Until the next time,

***NOTE: Copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher, Strange Chemistry. Thank you! 

I'm not paid for writing this review - I do it as a lover of written word. All opinions are personal!

Oppression by Jessica Therrien

Buy the book at

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / The Book Depository

Author's

Blog / Facebook / Twitter

Book summary: 

Elyse knows what it means to keep a secret. She's been keeping secrets her whole life. Two, actually. First, that she ages five times slower than average people, so that while she looks eighteen years old, she's well over eighty. Second, that her blood has a mysterious power to heal. For Elyse, these things don't make her special. They make life dangerous. After the death of her parents, she's been careful to keep her secret as closely guarded as possible. Now, only one other person in the world knows about her age and ability. Or so she thinks. Elyse is not the only one keeping secrets. There are others like her all over the world, descendants of the very people the Greeks considered gods. She is one of them, and they have been waiting for her for a long time. Some are waiting for her to put an end to centuries of traditions that have oppressed their people under the guise of safeguarding them. Others are determined to keep her from doing just that. But for Elyse, the game is just beginning-and she's not entirely willing to play by their rules.

         This is one of those books that I've read a while ago but somehow I didn't have time to put my review together. I decided it'd be great to do that as soon as possible. So Oppression is something that stayed in my mind all this time I might add.

         There are some books that you know you're going to love as soon as you open them and start reading them. This one was one of those. There was something mysterious about it that kept me turning pages and discovering more and more.

         Elyse is our main character here. She is a girl that on the outside seems really normal, she tries to live normal life, but inside she is everything but that. People assume that she is eighteen years old in reality she is over eighty. That she can thank to her ancestors. She is one of the people who are descendants of Greek gods and the blood that flows through their veins give them some special abilities. Only up until recently she thought that she was alone and after the death of her parents it was hard to cope with all that on her own. But soon she meets some people, one group is there to eliminate her and the other is to help here. But sometimes it's hard to know which is which.

         Everything about Greek mythology is fascinating at least. Not only Greek but any other so it was interesting to discover some new elements of it in this book. I loved how each descendant had some ability that connected them to certain god. It was great to see that spectra of powers. There is also a really sweet romance involved in this book. It might start as insta-love but later it nicely develops. Beside our main characters I truly enjoyed Sam's character. It was really fun to read some of the scenes he showed up.

        All in all, a really interesting take on Greek mythology and I hope I'll get to discover more of this world.

Rating: 4 stars.

Until the next time,

Happy New Year!

Hello darlings. We just wanted to take a moment and wish you all Happy New Year!

Thank you all for being such an amazing support this year and we hope to enjoy 2014 together as well. Cheers to all the new books and authors that we will discover and all amazing stories that we'll fall in love with!

Best wishes!