Book News, Weekly Recap & Upcoming Releases! {15}

Cover Reveals!!

Untie Me by Tahereh Mafi

Unite Me (Shatter Me #1.5; #2.5) by Tahereh Mafi
Release Date: February 4th 2014

Perfect for fans of Tahereh Mafi’s New York Times bestselling Shatter Metrilogy, this book collects her two companion novellas, Fracture Me andDestroy Me, in print for the first time ever. It also features an exclusive look into Juliette’s journal and a preview of Ignite Me, the hotly anticipated final novel of the series.

Destroy Me tells the events between Shatter Me and Unravel Me from Warner’s point of view. Even though Juliette shot him in order to escape, Warner can’t stop thinking about her—and he’ll do anything to get her back. But when the Supreme Commander of The Reestablishment arrives, he has much different plans for Juliette. Plans Warner cannot allow.

Fracture Me is told from Adam’s perspective and bridges the gap betweenUnravel Me and Ignite Me. As the Omega Point rebels prepare to fight the Sector 45 soldiers, Adam’s more focused on the safety of Juliette, Kenji, and his brother. The Reestablishment will do anything to crush the resistance . . . including killing everyone Adam cares about.

The Shatter Me series is perfect for fans who crave action-packed young adult novels with tantalizing romance like Divergent and The Hunger Games. This captivating story, which combines the best of dystopian and paranormal, was praised as “a thrilling, high-stakes saga of self-discovery and forbidden love” by Ransom Riggs, bestselling author of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

Unbroken by Jessica Sorensen

Unbroken (Shattered Promises #2.5) by Jessica Sorensen
Release Date: December 2013

Alex thought things were already complicated, but then Gemma shows up possessed by Stephan and she wants to kill him. Normally, he would eliminate someone in Gemma’s position to protect himself, but his feelings for Gemma won’t allow him to do that. She’s too important to him and he knows he has to save her without hurting her.

But can he find a way to save her before someone gets hurt?

Broken Dove by Kristen Ashley

Broken Dove (Fantasyland #4) by Kristen Ashley
Release Date: December 30th 2013

Far too young, Apollo Ulfr lost Ilsa, his wife, the love of is life and the mother of his two children. The grief of her loss does not settle in his soul, it solders to it. But when he discovers there is a parallel universe where his wife may have a twin, he feels there’s hope and sets about bringing her to his world so he can have her back.

But Ilsa Ulfr of our world is married to the parellel universe’s twin, Pol, who is not a good man. Not in any way. She’s on the run from him and the last thing she wants is to be transported to a fantastical world and be forced to take his side as his wife, even if he is not Pol. And Apollo finds the broken, bitter Ilsa nothing like his beloved and he further wants nothing to do with her.

But darkness is looming and evil is amassing. Apollo must protect his land and keep his family safe, including the new Ilsa.

Snippets!!

★ A Thanksgiving snippet from Cassandra Clare’s tumblr for City of Heavenly Fire!

“Did Brother Zachariah just steal our cat?”

★ The prologue of Rush Too Far by Abbi Glines is here! Rush Too Far releases May 2014.

They say that children have the purest hearts. That children don’t truly hate because they don’t fully understand the emotion. They forgive and forget easily.

They say a lot of bullshit like that because it helps them sleep at night. Such sayings make for good, heart-warming clichés to hang on the walls, to bring out a smile in people passing by.

​I know differently. Children love like no other. They have the capacity to love more fiercely than anyone else. That much is true. That much I know. Because I lived it. By the age of ten I knew hate and I knew love. Both all-consuming. Both life-altering. And both completely blinding.

​Looking back now I wish someone had been there to see how my mother had sown the seed of hate inside of me. Inside of my sister. If someone had been there to save us from the lies and bitterness she allowed to fester within us, then maybe things would have been different. For everyone involved.

​I never would have acted so foolishly. It wouldn’t have been my fault that a girl was left alone to take care of her ailing mother. It wouldn’t have been my fault that the same girl stood at her mother’s graveside, believing that the last person on earth who loved her was dead. It wouldn’t have been my fault that a man destroyed himself after his life became a broken, hollow shell.

​But no one saved me.

​No one saved us.

​We believed the lies. We held onto our hate, and I alone destroyed an innocent girl’s life.

​They say you reap what you sow. That’s bullshit, too. Because I should be burning in hell for my sins. I shouldn’t be allowed to wake up every morning with this beautiful woman in my arms, who loves me unconditionally. I shouldn’t get to hold my son and know such a pure joy.

​But I do.

​Because, eventually, someone did save me. I didn’t deserve it. Hell, more than anyone it was my sister who needed saving. She hadn’t acted on her hate. She hadn’t manipulated the lives of our family members, not caring about the outcome. But her bitterness still controlled her while I had been delivered. By a girl…

No, she wasn’t just a girl. She was an angel. My angel. A beautiful, strong, fierce, loyal angel who had entered my life in a pick-up truck, carrying a gun.

★ It’s an excerpt from Burned (Dani O’Malley #2; Fever #7) by Karen Marie Moning!

 The king stirred from his reverie and stared down at the unconscious female in his wings.

Half a million years since he’d last seen her. Held her. Touched her.

It was no illusion. She was here. She was real.

She felt as small and gossamer fragile as the new worlds he spun.

He inhaled. She smelled the same as she had on the day he’d met her, of sunshine on bare skin, moonlight on silver oceans and enormous, sky-no-limit dreams. He closed his eyes and opened them.

She was still there.

After an eternity of grief and regret, he held the only thing he’d ever wanted more than he wanted to be God.

A second chance.

He’d imagined this, dreamed it, hungered for it beyond reason.

They are replaceable, one and all, insisted the Fear Dorcha, his dark traveling companion through insanity. You will forget her.

But he never had.

Grief will pass, lisped the Crimson Hag, one of his more exquisitely terrible creations.

But it never did.

He, who had once been whole was halved without hope of ever being complete again. And when you’ve known that kind of love, to exist without it is to live a half-life where nothing else ever feels real.

He’d fabricated their reunion in countless illusions, slipping in and out of madness for millennia, talking to her as if she were beside him, answering. Drawing to his side one mortal woman after the next that possessed the body, the hair, a pale imitation of the passion, never seeing them, calling them by her name, pretending they were her until they died.

He’d lived lie after lie to escape the unbearable truth: She’d left him by choice, killed herself to escape him. He’d come to believe she’d never loved him at all, or worse—had stopped loving him because of the things he’d done.

Gazing down at her now, he found it easy to pardon Cruce for stealing her, forcing her to drink from the Cauldron and erasing all memory of their time together.

Somehow his soulmate was at long last the very thing he’d struggled to make her: Fae, immortal unless killed in one of a very small number of ways. (He intended to eradicate all of those ways immediately.) Funny how things turned should time enough pass. But the king knew the natural state of Universes was not to list toward entropy, rather wholeness. Universes were healthy. It was sentient beings with free will that were the true disasters.

So what if he’d suffered an eternity of hell without her? If someone had offered him this bargain a half a million years ago, said—you need only endure a half a million years without her to have her for all time—he would have taken it in a human heartbeat. What was a brief time of madness for eternity with her?

Fire to his ice. Frost to her flame.

He was whole again.

The Unseelie king bent his head and kissed her. Lightly. Reverently. He’d sliced open his soul and bled it out over memories of the woman he would never kiss again. Deep in his chest, thunder rolled.

Lashes fluttered. She opened her eyes. He drew back and stared down at her, unable to speak. Creator of worlds, God, Devil, whatever he was, words failed him now. His massive black wings shuddered with the depth of his feeling. He shifted and resettled them.

There was wonder in her gaze as she stared up at him: a moment of precious, pre-conscious dawn where all is dew and promise and anything at all might bloom.

Beginnings are fragile things.

Was it as he hoped? Was the power of true love greater than the power of the Cauldron of Forgetting? Did the body recall despite the damage done the mind? Memory, carved into gray matter, never obliterated. What would she say? What would her first words to him be?

Time ground to a halt and, as a human might hold his breath, the Unseelie king held his existence in silence, filling the frozen moment with tiny miracles: the blush of her skin, the curve of her lips, the arch of her brows.

Was that a flicker of confusion? Of duality preceding recognition? He knew her face intimately, had never forsaken a nuance, yet these were expressions he’d had no cause to learn.

After all she’d been through—eternities about which he knew nothing and might have contained any number of atrocities spent as they were at the Seelie Court with Cruce—but more recently kidnapped, interred in a tomb of ice and nearly killed by the power-hungry prince, he sought to reassure her:

“My love, you are safe. I have you now.” He paused, to lend emphasis to his next words, a pledge he would keep until the end of time, which he was fairly certain he was in some fashion or another. “And I will never let you go again.”

Envisioning their joyous future together as immortals, he waited for the first sound of her voice in half a million years…

She screamed.

★ You can read the epilogue from Until You (Fall Away #1.5) by Penelope Douglas on her Facebook here! It’s told in Madoc’s POV.

★ A snippet from Ilona Andrews’ Avon book! You can read it here.

Other News!!

★  If you haven’t heard Sylvain Reynard’s new novel announcement, you can read the blog post here. His next book will be called The Raven.

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Gabriel Series comes a dark, sensual tale of romance in a city shrouded in mystery…

Raven Wood spends her days at Florence’s Uffizi Gallery restoring fine works of Renaissance art.  But an innocent walk home after an evening with friends changes her life forever. When she intervenes in the senseless beating of a homeless man, his attackers turn on her, dragging her into an alley.  Raven is only semi-conscious when their assault is interrupted by a cacophony of growls followed by her attacker’s screams.  Mercifully, she blacks out, but not before catching a glimpse of a shadowy figure who whispers to her…

Cassita vulneratus.

When Raven awakes, she is inexplicably changed. She returns to the Uffizi, but no one recognizes her and more disturbingly, she discovers that she’s been absent an entire week. With no recollection of the events leading up to her disappearance, Raven also learns that her absence coincides with one of the largest robberies in Uffizi history – the theft of a set of priceless Botticelli illustrations. When the baffled police force identifies her as its prime suspect, Raven is desperate to clear her name. She seeks out one of Florence’s wealthiest and elusive men in an attempt to uncover the truth about her disappearance. Their encounter leads Raven to a dark underworld whose inhabitants kill to keep their secrets…

★ Gayle Forman’s next book will be called I Was Here, and it comes out in the first half of 2015.

This gritty, powerful new YA novel follows Cody Reynolds in the months following her best friend Meg’s shocking suicide. Delving into Meg’s secret life as she searches for answers, Cody discovers both her strengths and her vulnerabilities, testing her ability to love, to protect, and to forgive.

You can read about it on her tumblr here.

★ Jeaniene Frost’s next novel will be called The Beautiful Ashes, book one of the Broken Destiny series. You can read her blog post here.

Weekly Recap

Reviewed on the blog this week:

Books to review:

Be With Me by Jennifer L. Armentrout Before We Fall by Courtney Cole Gabriel's Redemption by Sylvain Reynard Holy Frigging Matrimony by Emma Chase

The Fine Line by Alicia Kobishop Elect by Rachel Van Dyken Four Seconds To Lose by K.A. Tucker

Blog Tours:

No Good Duke Goes Unpunished Sarah MacLean banner

T. Gephart series banner

undertow blog tour banner

REMY blog tour Banner

Don’t forget to check out the giveaways listed on the blog on the right!

Upcoming New Releases (so many good books releasing next week!)

Addicted for Now by Krista Ritchie & Becca Ritchie Cherry Girl by Raine Miller Kissed by a Dark Prince by Felicity E. Heaton Bitter Sweet Love by Jennifer L. Armentrout Knight & Day by Kitty French Out of Time by Jen McLaughlin Racing Savannah by Miranda Kenneally Gabriel's Redemption by Sylvain Reynard Kicking It Anthology Before We Fall by Courtney Cole Full Throttle by Erin McCarthy Castle Hill by Samantha Young Spellbound by Sylvia Day The Ever After of Ella and Micha by Jessica Sorensen Holy Frigging Matrimony by Emma Chase Otherwise Unharmed by Shay Savage

Top Ten Tuesday {11}: Best Sequels Ever

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It’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! This week’s theme is…

Top Ten Best Sequels Ever

Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

1. Unravel Me (Shatter Me #2) by Tahereh Mafi

Prodigy by Marie Lu

2. Prodigy (Legend #2) by Marie Lu

Losing Hope by Colleen Hoover

3. Losing Hope (Hopeless #2) by Colleen Hoover

The Crown of Embers by Rae CarsonThe Bitter Kingdom by Rae Carson

4. The Crown of Embers & The Bitter Kingdom (Fire and Thorns #2 & #3) by Rae Carson

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

5. Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare

We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han

6. We’ll Always Have Summer (Summer #3) by Jenny Han

Where She Went by Gayle Forman

7. Where She Went (If I Stay #2) by Gayle Forman

Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

8. Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone #2) by Laini Taylor

The Vincent Boys by Abbi Glines

9. The Vincent Brothers (The Vincent Boys #2) by Abbi Glines

Deity by Jennifer L. Armentrout

10. Deity (Covenant #3) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

So what are your favorite sequels?

lacey

Top Ten Tuesday {6}: Favorite Beginnings/Endings In Books

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It’s Top Ten Tuesday again, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish! This week’s theme is…

 Top Ten Favorite Beginnings/Endings In Books

The ones we chose for the best endings MAY HAVE SPOILERS, so read at your own risk!

  • Beginning: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: Honestly, this entire book is amazing, but what really stood out to me in the beginning of the book was that at first, you’re not sure who the narrator is, but then later on, you realize it’s Death. The beginning just hooked me in and I couldn’t stop reading.
  • Beginning: Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan: Loved the beginning, but hated the ending because the ending totally ripped and gutted my heart. Technically, the scene that I love isn’t actually at the very beginning, but it’s close, so I’ll just count that. It’s the scene where Kami and Jared are meeting for the first time in the elevator and they freak because they finally realize the voice in their heads are real and each other.
  • Ending: The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay: I honestly had no idea that the ending was going to connect with the whole Sea of Tranquility thing, but OH MY GOD, Katja Millay, you are a genius. (Cathy’s side note: And remember when she first ran to Josh’s house and thought it looked familiar? IT ALL ADDS UP. AHHH!! <3)

And if my Sea of Tranquility were real, it would be this place, here, with him.
I don’t say anything right away, because I just want one minute to look at him before I give him my last secret.
And then I tell him.
“Your garage.”

“My name is Edith Prior,” she says. “And there is much I am happy to forget.” Then the screaming begins.

NOW THAT’S A CLIFFHANGER. 😉

  • Ending: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: Augustus’s letter in the end was just… *sniffles* It was so beautiful and emotional, and I loved that we got to hear from Augustus one last time even after he was gone.

The Book Thief by Markus ZusakUnspoken by Sarah Rees Brennansea of tranquility 1Insurgent by Veronica RothThe Fault in Our Stars by John Green

  • Ending: This Girl by Colleen Hoover: PERFECTION. Just utter perfection, this book. The very last slam, about their baby girl, was just beautiful.
  • Ending: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell: Even though there wasn’t a definitive Happily Ever After, I still adored the ending. I thought it was the perfect way to end Eleanor and Park’s story, because even though it doesn’t explicitly say what happens for them at the end, you know that they’ll find a way to get their HEA for sure.
  • Ending: With All My Soul by Rachel Vincent: This ending was absolutely epic, and so not how I ever expected the series to end. Kaylee’s story definitely ends with a bang, but I’m so sad that the series is over.
  • Ending: If I Stay by Gayle Forman: If this isn’t perfect and heartbreaking and beautiful, then I don’t know what is:

“If you stay, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll quit the band, go with you to New York. But if you need me to go away, I’ll do that, too. I was talking to Liz and she said maybe coming back to your old life would be too painful, that maybe it’d be easier for you to erase us. And that would suck, but I’d do it. I can lose you like that if I don’t lose you today. I’ll let you go. If you stay.”

  • Ending: Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare: I can’t think of another book that made me bawl my eyes out as much as Clockwork Princess (maybe Losing Hope, actually). I just loved the entire ending. It was both happy and heartbreaking, since it’s the last book of the trilogy, but I couldn’t have hoped for a better ending.

This Girl by Colleen Hoovereleanor & parkwith all my soulIf I Stay by Gayle FormanClockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

Review: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Just One Day by Gayle Forman
Series: Just One Day #1 (full reading order below)
Publication Date: January 8th 2013
Purchase: Ebook • Hardcover • Paperback

A breathtaking journey toward self-discovery and true love, from the author of If I Stay

When sheltered American good girl Allyson “LuLu” Healey first meets laid-back Dutch actor Willem De Ruiter at an underground performance ofTwelfth Night in England, there’s an undeniable spark. After just one day together, that spark bursts into a flame, or so it seems to Allyson, until the following morning, when she wakes up after a whirlwind day in Paris to discover that Willem has left. Over the next year, Allyson embarks on a journey to come to terms with the narrow confines of her life, and through Shakespeare, travel, and a quest for her almost-true-love, to break free of those confines.

Just One Day is the first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willem’s story—Just One Year—is coming soon!

This book was absolutely AMAZING. I can’t believe I haven’t read any of Gayle Forman’s content before! (actually I’m pretty sure I did, but I don’t remember at all…) I love this book because it takes place in one of my favorite places; England. (P.S. GOING TO EUROPE THIS SUMMER HOLLAH) The journey that Allyson goes through is literally ah-freaking-mazing and I kind of wish it happened to me too, except not really. ANYWAYS.

The guys she meets is Willem and whew girl. The adventures that they both go on like OHMYGOODNESS CAN THAT PLEASE HAPPEN TO ME. WHY DON’T BRITISH GUYS APPROACH ME.

But anyways, Allyson is on a school trip, and she doesn’t want to go to a Shakespearian play with the rest of her class because she already saw it, so her friend and her go out and walk around the streets, WHICH IS WHERE THEY MEET WILLEM. And that is when sparks f l y. They decide to go to Paris together, and this is completely out of Allyson’s character because she’s that typical goody-two-shoes. So when they’re in Paris, they have amazing adventures, and she begins to fall in love with him. & he’s so so sweet to her toooooo (‘: And then they sleep and when she wakes up he’s gone. SO she goes back home, and thinks about it like FOREVER.

Eventually she goes back to Paris and tries to track him down. SO YEAH AND THEN THINGS HAPPEN; I DON’T WANT TO SPOIL IT FOR YOU ALL

BOTTOM LINE: READ. IT.

Ya’ll already know.

5-hearts

shirley

P.S. I’m sorry for my lack of reviews! I’ve actually kind of taken a hiatus on reading (brb sobbing) because of SAT boot camp. sigh I thought I would have more time because of summer vacation, but I actually have less time than I did DURING school. Anyways, I’ll try to get more reviews up though!

Reading Order: Just One Day series

Just One Day by Gayle Forman Just One Year by Gayle Forman Just One Night by Gayle Forman

#1 ~ Just One Day: Ebook • Hardcover • Paperback • Goodreads
#2 ~ Just One Year: Ebook • Hardcover • Paperback • Goodreads
#2.5 ~ Just One Night • EbookGoodreads

Top Ten Tuesday {1}: Books Dealing with Tough Subjects

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Today we’re participating in our very first meme that’s hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is:

Books Dealing with Tough Subjects

1. The Fault in Our Stars by John GreenThe Fault in Our Stars by John Green

This book is one of our absolute favorites! Cancer by itself is already a tough subject, and these characters are cancer patients who deal with death getting closer and closer every day. And Augustus Waters? *wipes tear* That boy and this whole book was so heart-breaking and incredible.


Hopeless by Colleen Hoover
2. Hopeless
by Colleen Hoover

This book pretty much tore out my heart. I don’t want to say exactly what happened to Sky, since it is spoilery, but it was one of the sickest, most vile things I’ve ever read. I almost wanted to take a breather, but I COULDN’T stop reading. Loved this book so, so much. Hopeless is a definite must read.

 

3. Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarryPushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Noah is an orphan whose parents died while he was still in high school, and he’s fighting for custody of his two younger brothers, who mean the world to him. Echo is a girl who has scars all over her arms and nearly died because of an incident with her mother. Both of them are emotional wrecks and are in immense grief, and I love how they found love with each other in a time when they couldn’t possibly be happy.

Easy by Tammara Webber4. Easy by Tammara Webber

At the start of the book, the heroine, Jacqueline, is attacked and nearly raped by a friend of her ex-boyfriend. The book focuses on the consequences of the attempted assault, and on Jacqueline’s relationship with Lucas, who has a past that was so sad and heart-breaking to read. LOVED this book.

 

5. The Sea of Tranquility by Katja MillayThe Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

Nastya’s life was ruined at a very young age from a traumatic event, and Josh doesn’t even care about anything but work ever since lost his family. The two are very broken, but what I love about them and this book is that they find a way to move past and accept their grief and be happy with each other. This book was SO FREAKING AMAZING.

If I Stay by Gayle Forman6. If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Mia and her family get into a car accident, and everyone-her mother, father, and younger brother-dies except for her. Mia is able to see what happens while she in a  coma, and we experience the intense grief that Mia goes through, knowing that by the time she wakes up, she’ll be alone in the world. This was so heart-breaking to read, but I loved the 2nd book even better.

 

7. Wait for You by Jennifer L. ArmentroutWait For You by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Avery was sexually assaulted when she was a young teenager, and even though she’s starting college now, the effects of that experience have not waned. She goes through so much emotional pain that you can’t help but wish she gets her happily-ever-after with Cam (who is the most adorable guy ever!).

 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak8. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

A fictional book set during the Holocaust, The Book Thief is one of my favorite books ever, but made me an emotional train wreck by the time I was done.

 

 

9. The Coincidence of Kallie and Kayden by Jessica SorensenThe Coincidence of Kallie and Kayden by Jessica Sorensen

Callie also goes through something horrific, and keeps to herself constantly, never allowing herself to reach out to others. Eventually, she finds a connection with Kayden (who also has problems of his own), but it takes a long while before she can open herself up to him.

 

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher10. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Hannah tells her story through recorded tapes to the people who caused her to commit suicide. There is so much pain and suffering, and the book makes you think a lot about the effect you have on other people and how careful you should act towards others.

 

So, these are our top ten! Let us know which of these you agree with or what books you think should be added. And be on the lookout next week for our next Top Ten Tuesday (the next theme sounds SO FUN)!