Prequel to Chamberlain's forthcoming novel Necessary Lies
Pub. Date: June 4th, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ebook
35 pages
Review: The First Lie by Diane Chamberlain
Review: Kissing the Maid of Honor by Robin Bielman
A Secret Wishes
Novel
Pub. Date: May 13, 2013
Publisher: Entangled
Ebook
230 pages
If every wish we made came true, then we would miss out on
some pretty great things. Case in point, Kissing
the Maid of Honor. Before her best friend Vanessa’s wedding, Sela Sullivan
drops a coin in a wishing well, wishing that Vanessa’s brother Luke would keep
his distance throughout wedding festivities. Ten years before, when she was 15,
and harboring a major crush on Luke - her best friends brother and her own
brother’s best friend - she paid to kiss him in a kissing booth. It was
everything she wanted her first kiss to be – until he absolutely humiliated
her. Thankfully her wish doesn’t come true, Luke does not keep his distance,
and both are ultimately very happy that they have had the chance to reconnect.
Switching the narrative between Sela and Luke’s perspectives
works really. It allows a lot more insight into what both are thinking, and how
genuinely concerned they are with how their family and friends will react to their
growing relationship. The switching perspective really helps you buy the
relationship, and root for Sela and Luke as a couple to finally get it
together, and be together.
I found the majority of the novel to be fairly realistic. There
are specific struggles and development that
Review: Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger by Beth Harbison
Pub. Date: July 9th, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Hardcover
384 pages
With a title as funny, direct and entertaining, as this, how
could a Women’s Fiction/Chick Lit reader resist? The best part, the entertaining
title, perfectly represents the novel. When we are first introduced to Quinn
Barton she is in a wedding dress, ready to walk down the aisle. Ten years later,
Quinn is a professional success, designing one of a kind dresses and owning her
own shop Talk of the Gown, but she
has been in a romantic rut since leaving her fiancé Burke Morrison at the
altar. She has never been able to get over Burke’s infidelity, and she has
never been able to understand why his brother Frank waited until the morning of
her wedding to bring her into the loop. When Dottie, the Morrison’s Grandmother
asks Quinn to design her a wedding dress, all sorts of shenanigans begins to
ensue.
Faced with running into the Morrison brothers for the first
time in ten years, Quinn’s friend Glenn takes it upon himself assign Quinn daily
tasks like underwear free day and speed dating day, in hopes of getting her out
of her romantic rut, and over the Morrison brothers. While Glenn is trying to
get Quinn over Burke and Frank, Dottie does her best to push Quinn and her
grandson together – which grandson Dottie’s pushing for, Quinn can’t be sure.
Filled with Harbison’s signature humour and calamity, Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong
Finger does not disappoint. Glenn is the shinning star of the novel. He is
by far the funniest character,
Review: Imposter by Susanne Winnacker
Publisher: Razorbill
Hardcover
274 pages
Tessa can change her appearance
to that of anyone she comes in contact with. She is a Variant – a person with an
otherworldly ability. Two years ago, Tessa was offered the chance to leave her
not so happy home to join the Forces with Extraordinary Abilities (FEA), a
subset of the FBI. She along with the other Variants work at the FEA to hone
their abilities, from becoming invisible, to reading minds, influencing
emotions, and having super strength. It’s hard not to compare the Variants
series to the X-Men, and the FEA to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.
While a comparison to such a beloved series (franchise?) can be the kiss of
death, at this point in the series I would say the comparison is warranted and
deserved.
Once a Variants training is complete, the FBI can use them to assist during special assignments. But, even though Tessa’s training isn’t done, her specific Variant is needed now. She is assigned to take over the body and the life of Madison, a high school senior, and the fourth victim of a small town serial killer. Tessa is not only unsure if she can maintain her Variant for days or weeks at a time, but she is also unsure how to integrate herself into a family and a group of friends that
Once a Variants training is complete, the FBI can use them to assist during special assignments. But, even though Tessa’s training isn’t done, her specific Variant is needed now. She is assigned to take over the body and the life of Madison, a high school senior, and the fourth victim of a small town serial killer. Tessa is not only unsure if she can maintain her Variant for days or weeks at a time, but she is also unsure how to integrate herself into a family and a group of friends that
Review: Deeper We Fall by Chelsea M. Cameron
Book #1 in the Rise and Fall Series
Pub Date: January 25th 2013
Pub Date: January 25th 2013
All Night Reads
Ebook
280 Pages
New Adult is a genre that I can definitely get behind. But I
hadn’t read an NA title I really loved until Deeper We Fall. Lottie (Charlotte) Anders is by far one of the most
flesh and bone characters that I have ever read. She is so vividly created that
you feel you are going through every experience, emotion and conversation with
her. From the first chapter you understand Lottie in a deeply profound way, and
you wish you had her gumption, or in the least, you wish you could know her.
Leaving the party should have been easy. But that was when
Lottie’s best friend Lexie was going to drive her own car home, instead of
getting a ride from Zack Parker. Their was no way Lottie was getting in Zack’s
truck, even after Zack’s much more sober brother Zan decided to drive, and
their was no getting Lexie out. Two years later, Lottie and her twin brother
Will are moving into their college residence when they come face to face with
the last two people Lottie ever wanted to see again – the Parker brothers. While
Zack seems unaffected by the permanent mental and physically damage the car
accident caused Lexie, staying the cocky asshole he was two years ago, she can’t
say Zan is the evil person she built him up to be.
Review: The Favor by Megan Hart
Pub. Date: June 25th, 2013
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Paperback
384 pages
The Favor is a captivating, thought provoking, and at times heartbreaking, work
of literary fiction. I have to admit I was apprehensive given what I know about
some of Hart’s other novels in a different genre, but this novel completely
blew me away.
When Janelle Decker’s uncle calls, asking if she, along with her son,
could move from California to Pennsylvania to look after her terminally ill
Nan, the proposition is both daunting and surprisingly welcome. Having lived
with her Nan during the ‘vacation’ times she was supposed to be spending with
her dad, and permanently during her rebellious alcohol and drug fueled senior
year of high school, St. Mary’s is in some ways home, and in other ways
representative of parts of the life she tried to leave behind.
Having once been the one tucked into bed and looked after by her Nan,
and now having the tables turned, seems to be the only thing that has changed
in St. Mary’s. The house is virtually the same, as are the neighbors, including
Gabriel “Gabe” Tierney, Janelle’s first love. Seeing Gabe again is exciting,
Review: Touching Melody by RaShelle Workman
Pub. Date: May 14th, 2013
Publisher: All Night Reads
Format: ebook
161 pages
When Maddie Martin sees two men leaving her house, one her
best friend Kyle Hadley’s police officer father, the other man with a gun, she
would never have believed that she would find her parents shot to death inside.
Forced by her strict Aunt and Uncle to keep quiet about Hadley’s involvement,
Maddie becomes reclusive. She throws herself into music, becoming an
accomplished pianist, earning a full scholarship to the University of Bellam
Springs. As devastating as it was to lose her parents, never hearing from Kyle after
the murders hurts her more, and makes her believe that he is just as bad a
person as his father. What Maddie and Kyle don’t know is that her Aunt and
Uncle intercepted all of letters Kyle wrote, in an attempt to keep the two
apart.
At Bellam Springs, Maddie and Kyle are reunited. Maddie is
surprised by how strongly she is drawn back to Kyle, given how firmly she
believes that he is not a
Review: All I Need by Susane Colasanti
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Format: Hardcover
240 pages
Skye spends summer after summer hoping to fall in love and
find a life changing connection. Enter Seth. Spending only a few days together
before Seth has to leave for college, the two talk and connect in the way that
Skye has always hoped for. But, when Seth leaves Sea Bright before they have a
chance to exchange contact information, Skye is left wondering what happened. The
novel takes place over the next two years of Skye and Seth’s lives, and is told
through their alternating perspectives.
By the time I finished All
I Need, I left with – and I hate to say it - a feeling of ‘so what’. I have
enjoyed other books by Colasanti, but I found the relationship between Seth and
Skye to be somewhat immature, and not authentic, which was especially
disappointing considering the novel is entirely character and relationship driven.
From their first interaction, through the end of the novel, I did not find that
the characters voices reflected typical teens. They talk philosophical, and
unrealistically wise beyond their years, similar to
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)