Monday, October 29, 2018

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Spooky Reads for Halloween


Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme started by The Broke and the Bookish and currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Top Ten Tuesday: Halloween / Creepy Freebie

This week's TTT is a Halloween freebie so I'm listing 10 of my favorite spooky reads to binge around Halloween!

1. The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich

2. And the Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich

3. Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

4. Slasher Girls and Monster Boys

5. Asylum by Madeleine Roux

6. There's Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins

7. Cryer's Cross by Lisa McMann

8. Boy Heaven by Laura Kasischke

9. The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

10. Broken Things by Lauren Oliver

Do you like spooky reads around Halloween? What are some of your favorites?
Let me know in the comments or drop me a link to your TTT!
Happy Reading and Haunting Bookdragons!

Book Review: SAWKILL GIRLS by Claire Legrand


Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand
Blurb:
Beware of the woods and the dark, dank deep.

He’ll follow you home, and he won’t let you sleep.

Who are the Sawkill Girls?

Marion: the new girl. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.

Zoey: the pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken—or maybe everyone else is.

Val: the queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives, a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.

Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires.

Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight… until now.

My Review:
Earlier this year I read Furyborn by this author and I didn't really like it. But when I saw the blurb for this one and it sounded so amazing I had to give it a chance. 

Furyborn and Sawkill Girls are night and day. Sawkill girls is a story beautifully steeped in legend, bone-chilling thrills, and three very different girls. Once I picked it up I didn't want to pick it down and it was one of those rare books where I liked all of the characters whose perspectives the story is told in. I found myself feeling sympathy for Val, the girl cast as the mean girl, I cheered for shy mousy Marion as she came out of her shell, and I felt the struggle Zoey lived with every day. 

My one issue with the writing was the author's description of people. Describing someone as just a black man or a white man doesn't give me a real good picture. Not all people of the same race look the same, give me broad shoulders, and military buzz cuts and scars beneath one eye... something to tell me what the person looks like. 

I did like that the author chose to go with an LGBTQ romance as well as delving into an asexual character in this book. It was refreshing and I've actually never read a book where the character was asexual.

Overall, I really loved this book and it completely turned me around for this author's books. 

My Rating:
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
4.75 of 5 Stars! 

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

{Blog Tour} Book Review: WEST by Edith Pattou


West (East, #2) by Edith Pattou
West
(East #2)
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Release Date: October 23, 2018
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Blurb:
In the sequel to the beloved high fantasy East, Rose sets off on a perilous journey to find her true love when he goes missing in a thrilling tale of danger, magic, adventure, and revenge.

When Rose first met Charles, he was trapped in the form of a white bear. To rescue him, Rose traveled to the land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon to defeat the evil Troll Queen. Now Rose has found her happily-ever-after with Charles—until a sudden storm destroys his ship and he is presumed dead. But Rose doesn’t believe the shipwreck was an act of nature, nor does she believe Charles is truly dead. Something much more sinister is at work. With mysterious and unstoppable forces threatening the lives of the people she loves, Rose must once again set off on a perilous journey. And this time, the fate of the entire world is at stake.


My Review:
West is the very long awaited sequel to Edith Pattou's East... like 10+ years awaited. I'll be honest, before I saw the Charlie Bowater's cover for West, I'd never even heard of the author or the first book in the series. But you guys know how much I love East O' The Sun and West  O' The Moon (ahem... CurseBreaker) so when I saw this blog tour I had to sign up.

Luckily I was able to catch up with East before diving into West. At first I found the writing a bit... thick to get into but eventually a wonderful story with well developed characters emerged and I couldn't stop reading. I binged East then started West immediately after, reading way past my bedtime to see how Rose's story would continue. 

Sometimes readers worry when there is such a huge gap between books that it won't have the same flow or it will have been so long since the last book that you've lost all interest in reading the next one but West definitely busts out of that stereotype flowing as seamlessly from East as if they'd been one book all along. 

Overall, if you love fantasy, Scandinavian folklore, romance, and fairytale retellings that will please the young and young-at-heart this book will sweep you off your feet and take you on the journey of a lifetime. 
My Rating:
🌟🌟🌟🌟
4 of 5 Stars!

TOUR SCHEDULE 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
Edith Pattou is the author of several fantasy novels, including East, an ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults. She is a graduate of the Francis W. Parker School, Scripps College (B.A., English), Claremont Graduate School (M.A., English) and UCLA (M.L.I.S.). She is married to Charles Emery, a professor of psychology at The Ohio State University. They have one child, a daughter. 

GIVEAWAY 
Prize: 1 finished copy of WEST by Edith Pattou 
US Only 
Starts: 10/16 
Ends: 10/31 

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Monday, October 22, 2018

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Villains


Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme started by The Broke and The Bookish and currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Top Ten Tuesday: Villains!

This week's TTT is all about Villains. The good. The bad. The ugly.  Technically I could only come up with 7 but here goes...

1. The Darkling

2. The Swan Sisters

3. Ariana Osgood

4. The Anarchists

5. Jacks (The Prince of Hearts)

6. The House

7. The Witch

Who are some of your favorite bookish villains? Let me know in the comments or drop me a link to your TTT!
Happy Reading Bookdragons!

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Book Review: BROKEN THINGS by Lauren Oliver


Broken Things by Lauren Oliver
Blurb:
It’s been five years since Summer Marks was brutally murdered in the woods.
Everyone thinks Mia and Brynn killed their best friend. That driven by their obsession with a novel called The Way into Lovelorn the three girls had imagined themselves into the magical world where their fantasies became twisted, even deadly.

The only thing is: they didn’t do it.

On the anniversary of Summer’s death, a seemingly insignificant discovery resurrects the mystery and pulls Mia and Brynn back together once again. But as the lines begin to blur between past and present and fiction and reality, the girls must confront what really happened in the woods all those years ago—no matter how monstrous.

My Review:
What first drew me to this book, even before I knew what it was about was the awesome cover. Then, as a Wisconsinite, the blurb immediately drew parallels to the Waukesha Slender Man Case so I knew I had to read it. 

This book is not a play on that case, there are of course similarities whether the author planned on that or not but this book is an engrossing mystery that will keep you on the edge of your seat trying to figure out: Who really killed Summer Marks? 

It's a gorgeously written tale of a small town that persecutes three teenagers with little proof, misconceptions, how the scars of the past have shaped the lives of those left behind after a grisly crime, and learning to heal from it all. 

This is my first Lauren Oliver book and after finishing I kind of (completely want to) want to go out and auto-buy all of her other books. The big reveal in this one blew me away, I never would have suspected it and the ending left me satisfied.

Overall, this is a perfect October read, or an anytime read when you're looking for a pulse-racing thriller.

My Rating:
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
5 of 5 Stars!

Friday, October 19, 2018

Book Review: The Darkest Star by Jennifer L. Armentrout


The Darkest Star (Origin, #1) by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Blurb:
When seventeen-year-old Evie Dasher is caught up in a raid at a notorious club known as one of the few places where humans and the surviving Luxen can mingle freely, she meets Luc, an unnaturally beautiful guy she initially assumes is a Luxen...but he is in fact something much more powerful. Her growing attraction for Luc will lead her deeper and deeper into a world she'd only heard about, a world where everything she thought she knew will be turned on its head...

#1 New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout returns to the universe of the Lux in this brand new series, featuring beloved characters both new and old.

My Review:
I've been excitedly waiting for The Darkest Star since I first heard it was going to happen. Luc having his own series??? Yes please! 

Luckily I was able to get a copy through a trade and I started it right away. The story hooked me right away, but it is solely told in Evie's perspective and I kind of wish it had been told in dual perspectives between Evie and Luc, or maybe even that the whole book might have been told in Luc's perspective, although now that I think about it the latter probably wouldn't have worked. 

You get a (small) glimpse of some of your favorite characters from the LUX series (hellllooooo Daemon!) but I could have done with a little more. Maybe we'll see them more in the next book?

Like I said, the beginning hooked me and the ending was great but there was a part in the middle that made me want to skim a few chapters and I thought the big reveal about Evie's past could have been revealed a lot sooner in the story. By the time it was revealed it was like, yeah I've been guessing this for what? 200 pages?

Overall, it was a good, solid read and I'm definitely up to continuing this spinoff series whether it's to be a duology, trilogy, or more but you know what they say about spinoffs: they're never as good as the original. 

My Rating:
🌟🌟🌟🌟
4 of 5 Stars!

Monday, October 15, 2018

{Release Day Blitz} BETTING ON HIM by Kelly Collins




I am happy to be helping Kelly Collins and InkSlingerPR announce the release of BETTING ON HIM! BETTING ON HIM is the first Wilde Love novel, a series about the Las Vegas mob. If you love mafia romance, this is one you don't want to miss!

 

About BETTING ON HIM

He’s a gangster going straight. She’s a waitress going bankrupt. Will their gamble on a marriage of convenience pay off in true love?
Alex Wilde desperately wants to be free of the family’s mob business. But when his infamous father is murdered, the family attorney makes a suggestion he can’t ignore: find a bride before the funeral or they'll force a wedding with a nice Russian gangster girl. When he meets a feisty cocktail waitress, he thinks he’s found his way out.
Faye Tandy is desperately in debt and hard-pressed to find help. Alex’s offer of a phony marriage for a ton of cash couldn’t come at a better time and she’s happy to help him exit the criminal world. The fact that he’s tall, dark, and handsome is an attractive bonus. But when she discovers the Russians have a contract out on her head, she wonders if divorced and bankrupt would be a better choice than rich and dead...
As Faye’s fake feelings for Alex turn real, she’s terrified her trip to the altar might be her last. Will Alex and Faye’s throw of the dice succeed or will they lose the lawless game of love?

Add BETTING ON HIM to your Goodreads TBR!

Get your copy of BETTING ON HIM on Amazon today!

 

 

About KELLY COLLINS

International bestselling author of more than thirty novels, Kelly Collins writes with the intention of keeping the love alive. Always a romantic, she blends real-life events with her vivid imagination to create characters and stories that lovers of contemporary romance, new adult, and romantic suspense will return to again and again. Kelly lives in Colorado at the base of the Rocky Mountains with her husband of twenty-eight years, their two dogs, and a bird that hates her. She has three amazing children, whom she loves to pieces. Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Newsletter | BookBub

Monday, October 8, 2018

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Longest Books I've Read


Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme started by The Broke and the Bookish and currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Longest Books I've Read

This week's TTT is all about those massive doorstoppers, long books that we've read. 

1. Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

2. The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

3. Nevermore by Kelly Creagh

4. Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas

5. A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas

6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

7. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

8. Bitten by Kelley Armstrong

9. The Great Pursuit by Wendy Higgins

10. The Beauty of Darkness by Mary E. Pearson

Do you realize that's an accumulated 6,441 pages right there depending on your format? I wonder how many pages I've read in my lifetime...
What are some of the longest books you've read? One of my grandmother's favorites is Forever Amber which is nearly 1000, War and Peace is a monster, so are a lot of Stephen King's books, and I hear Kingdom of Ash is over 900!
Happy Reading Bookdragons, whether its a graphic novel, a novel, or a monster of a book!

Read NIGHT OF TERROR