Recent Reads: The Calling by Kelley Armstrong

The Calling by Kelley Armstrong
Series:Darkness Rising #2
Publisher: Harper
Publication Date: April 2012 

 

Format: Hardback
Source:My Home Library, Bought

Rating: Somewhere between 3-4 Stars



 


 


Goodreads Synopsis: 

Maya Delaney's paw-print birthmark is the mark of what she truly is -a skin-walker. She can run faster, climb higher, and see better than nearly everyone else. Experiencing intense connections with the animals that roam the woods outside her home, Maya knows it's only a matter of time before she's able to Shift and become one of them. And she believes there may be others in her small town with surprising talents.

Now Maya and her friends have been forced to flee from their homes during a forest fire they suspect was deliberately set. Then they're kidnapped, and after a chilling helicopter crash, they find themselves in the Vancouver Island wilderness with nothing but their extraordinary abilities to help them get back home.

In THE CALLING, the sizzling second book in the Darkness Rising trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong pumps up the romance, danger, and suspense that left readers of THE GATHERING clamoring for more.

 Review: 


For July's TBR Jar pick I finally got around to reading The Calling. I LOVED the Darkest Powers Trilogy (and I do mean LOVED!!!!!!) and The Gathering of the Darkness Rising Trilogy caught my attention as well, but the characters aren't as great (in my opinion) as in Darkest Powers. So...on to the review...

This second book in the series is a great second book as far as trilogies go. Maya and her friends/ fellow test subjects are on the run -- and that is the whole book. We pick up right were book one left off and so I had to do a recap of book one since it was so long ago that I had read it, but after doing so the storyline just keeps on going in book 2. I think that the reason I have enjoyed the books so far is because of the action, they are teens on the run and the badies have guns and supernatural powers on their side. 

I like Maya the main character, she is strong and interesting, but I can't love her as much as I loved Chloe. I found Maya conflicted too many times for my liking - about trusting others, about her feelings, it was just bothersome. The other characters are all interesting as well but I feel needed more depth, there are the stereotypical clown guy, the strong trustworthy guy, the girly girl and the brute girl and that is really all they are so far, I hope they grow in book 3.

I did enjoy this book, the action had kept this trilogy on my radar so I hope to pick up book 3 at some point. 

Cover Reveal: Breathe & Shimmer by Elena Dillon {New Covers}

Breathe by Elena Dillon 

Book 1 - Breathe Series 

Young Adult Romantic Suspense

About the Book

Jasmine’s life wasn’t normal for a 16 year old girl. It hadn’t been normal since the murder of her older sister, Daisy, two years ago. Her life had been changed forever. The monster that murdered Daisy was never caught. That was the reason her family decided to move away from their hometown in Southern California, to start over. Hopefully in a place where the last name Rourke wouldn’t bring on staring or judgment or morbid curiosity.

In Lafayette, Louisiana things are quite a bit different but in a good way. Good manners, Cajun accents and a whole lot of Southern Hospitality all make her think things are going in the right direction. On top of that the most gorgeous boy she has ever met is interested in her. Her new friends are better than she could have hoped for even if she is worried about what they might think when they find out who she is. Life would be perfect if odd things didn’t keep happening. Creepy phone calls, texts, and flowers in her locker start adding up quickly to something terrifying. Could the Monster have followed them to Lafayette? Was he coming after her this time? Maybe she was just worrying unnecessarily…or not.

Add to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1l2aRBN

Purchase

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1lFsuHL

Barnes & Noble:  http://bit.ly/1upgmE2

Shimmer by Elena Dillon

Book 2 - Breathe Series

Young Adult Romantic Suspense

About the Book

Chandler Raines and her “dad” are on the run. Never staying in one place for very long. It’s just not safe. When they arrive in Lafayette, Louisiana, Chandler quickly realizes this is the place she wants to call home. Friends, a cute boy, and competitive cheerleading have her taking dangerous risks to have the life she always wanted. Risks she promised she wouldn’t take. When her lies catch up to her, a decision has to be made. Stay or run? Will the evil that’s chased them for the last four years catch up to them? When Chandler’s past comes screeching into the present she’ll have to sacrifice everything to keep what she loves safe. But will it be enough?

About the Author

I have had a love of books for as long as I can remember. I got in trouble as a kid for staying up too late on school nights, reading. I'm a nerdgirl and proud of it. I've been writing my whole life but only recently decided to come out in public with it.

I write Young Adult love stories because as my husband would tell you, I never matured much past fifteen. There is nothing better to me than a good romance with an amazing hero, throw in some creepy suspense and I'm in.

I write from my home office in Southern California with our English Bulldog, Brutus to keep me company. To hear about him, my writing experience and read some outtakes of my stories check out my blog at elenadillon.com.

I love to chat with other readers and writers.

Facebook / Twitter

Building the Book Pile #101

Welcome to Building the Book Pile!  A Weekly meme inspired by Stacking the Shelves

Hello Readers, Bloggers, and Awesome people! 

What's Happening?! 
It has been a long week! After returning from my mom's last weekend and throwing myself back into work stuff, I have been exhausted, but I have been reading a lot so that is nice. This week I started and finished a book and am about 2/3 the way through another.

Saturday we did more work on our outside patio, toting pavers and bags of pebbles was rough and I am achey but it looks great and we are almost done. 

How was your week ? Let me know in the comments.

Giveaways Going on NOW!   

 

  Save 20% at Gone Reading! with this code : C2C20  

Click pic/link to be taken to the giveaway!

Others may be linked on the right sidebar :) check them out!

 

Coming up on the Blog... 

• Cover reveal: Breathe and Shimmer by Elena Dillon (YA)
• Early Reader Review: I Was the Cat by Paul Tobin (Graphic Novel)
• Early Reader Review: Get Lost, Odysseus! by Kate McMullan (MG)

Books This Week
Bought
    

Die for Me by Amy Plum (Hardback)
Loki's Wolves by Armstrong and Marr (Hardback)
First Grave on the Right by  Darynda Jones (Paperback)

For Review Consideration
   
The Stern and the Wild Ones by Resse Evhans, from the Author
Bad Magic by Pseudonymous Bosch from Netgalley and Little, Brown Books for review
 
Covers go to Goodreads

Have you missed anything lately?

• Blog Tour: Review -- Keeper (The Morphid Chronicles #1) by Ingrid Seymour (YA) - 5 stars
• Coupon Code: GoneReading.com
• ARC August Planning post!

  Comment and leave me a link to your Round-up/ STS/ Weekly...anything post and I will happily stop by and say hello!

 Happy Reading!

Blog Tour: Review & Giveaway! -- Keeper by Ingrid Seymour

Tour Page & Schedule

About the Book

Keeper by Ingrid Seymour
The Morphid Chronicles (Omnibus Edition)

400 pages/ Young Adult

For them, free will is a luxury . . .

Greg Papilio both wants and dreads his impending metamorphosis. He's tired of being an ugly runt--always picked last on the basketball court--when he could be strong and what girls call "drop dead gorgeous." But as much as he looks forward to the transformation, he also fears the caste it will inevitably assign to him. He doesn't want a common caste. He wants a powerful one, a cool one.

Samantha Gibson is average. She's short and a little full around the hips--a terribly cute look for a future chef. She's two years away from culinary school, from her uncaring parents, and from carving a perfectly Human future. She wants independence, a career and a quiet life of her own.

Except fate couldn't care less about what Greg and Samantha want and gives them exactly the opposite. Greg's metamorphosis assigns him a caste that enslaves him, while Samantha's chance to attend Le Cordon Bleu is taken away. But things are never as interesting as when Ashby--an intriguing blonde with a hidden identity--enters her life with a splash.

Greg's fate is to be Samantha's Keeper, to protect her at a time when someone wants her dead. He will stop at nothing to ensure her safety, even if her secret past proves deadly, even if he's keeping her safe for someone else.

 

 

Grab Keeper Vol. One (first part of the story) for .99 cents on

Wow, this was a spectacular read. I flew through it, not wanting to stop for anything... I was hooked to these characters. Keeper follows a bunch of characters and they are all interesting and easy to read about/ in their point of view. There is Sam, Greg, and Ashby but most of what you read is in the POVs of Sam and Greg. The book follows these characters as they learn who they are in a complex world of lies, ignorance, and deceit. It was SO good!

It is hard to write a review that would give this book justice without giving away all the good parts -- I guess what you need to know is that Sam is a girl who is struggling with many realizations about herself including the fact that she has a guardian and there are strange hot guys suddenly taking interest in her. There is Greg, who is a recently-morphed Morphid, whose caste is not a normal one at all and he has no idea what to do except help Sam. And then finally there is Ashby, who is a prince so to speak and he is trying to figure out his place in the regency without treading too much on his mother's scary toes. 

These characters and more clash in a story that is overwhelmingly fun to read. The characters are all interesting and I loved reading more from each of them, then on top of all of this the plot was wonderfully put together. I was on the edge of my seat (literally while reading at my computer at work during lunch break) the whole time. Even the day to day troubles of 'normal' Sam where complex and captivating.

I highly recommend this book to Young Adult Fantasy lovers.

 

     

About the Author
Ingrid Seymour loves, loves, loves to write. She’s a young and new adult author. She writes in a variety of genres including romance, urban fantasy, paranormal and horror. She loves pizza and sushi, Sunkist and gum. She believes in vampires, witches, but not zombies (uh-uh, never!) She writes to loud music, daydreams constantly and spends too much time in twitter!! Find her there? Ingrid has incredible fun doing what she does, but more than anything she enjoys hearing from her readers. It’s a dream come true.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest |

Goodreads | G +

********************************************************

$25 Amazon Gift Card (INT)
Keeper signed paperback & bracelet (US)

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

It's almost ARC August Baby!!!

AHHH I almost forgot about ARC August... I was happy to run into it on someone's blog (sorry I forget who's it was) and so after heading over to visit Octavia @ Read. Sleep. Repeat I decided... why shouldn't I do it?! :)

I love these things (Yay happy dance!)

 

 So what is this madness I speak of? It is a month of reading ARCs, whatever you need to get through, the ones sitting on your shelf forever, anything that is an ARC and boy do I have loads of them I NEED to read. -- Don't judge, you know you have them too :P

Here is my plan:

          

With these I would also like to read a few others that are not ARCs so this is it for ARCs :)

Are you planning on signing up? You should! If so, let me know what you are reading :)

 

Awesome Coupon Code: GoneReading.com

Hey readers! Have you heard of 

??

They have the most adorable and fun stuff for readers and they have sent me the below coupon code for you to get 20% off of your purchase!

I know, right?! This is awesome!

They have cute T-shirts and bookmarks...

and look at these wonderful "reading family" decals...

 

You are bound to find something you love!

So here is the code - C2C20

Happy Shopping Booklovers!

Terms: the coupon can be used an unlimited number of times for the next 60 days on non-sale items :)

Building the Book Pile #100

Welcome to Building the Book Pile!  A Weekly meme inspired by Stacking the Shelves

Hello Readers, Bloggers, and Awesome people! 

What's Happening?!
Hi everyone! This past week was great, so great in fact that I missed posting my BtBP on Sunday :/ WHOOPS :P
Over the last week I took a trip to Georgia to visit my mom and once there we left and when to Virginia to see my grandfather, so there was a lot of traveling - I am kind of pooped but it was wonderful to see everyone and hang out with the family.

In terms of reading, I am still going at a steady pace and this week I got a few more books to add to that pile.

How was your week ? Let me know in the comments.

Giveaways Going on NOW!   

 

 

Click pic/link to be taken to the giveaway!

Others may be linked on the right sidebar :) check them out!

 

Coming up on the Blog... 

Post about an AWESOME Coupon Code!! from GoneReading.com
 (This is too cool, if you follow on FB the code is already up) ;)

Blog Tour: Review -- Keeper (Omnibus Edition) by Ingrid Seymour (YA) 

This weekend is also another Write On Review-a-thon with The Book Vixen!Here is the Sign Up. I hope to read a bunch this week and have some reviews to write over the weekend :)

Books This Week

Dreamwood by Heather Mackey from Librarything Early Reviewers program and Recorded Books for review (Audiobook)

Allies and Assassins by Justin Somper from Librarything Early Reviewers program and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for review (Hardcover)

Fire and Smoke : A Pitmaster's Secrets by Chris Lilly from Blogging for Books for review.

Have you missed anything lately?

• Recent Reads: Dear Luke, We Need to Talk, Darth: And Other Pop Culture Correspondences by John Moe (Adult)
• Early Reader Review: Rocket Girl: Volume 1 Times Squared by Amy Reeder (Graphic Novel)
• Bloggiesta Plans/ Progress
• Blog Tour: Anthem's Fall by S.L. Dunn (YA)

  Comment and leave me a link to your Round-up/ STS/ Weekly...anything post and I will happily stop by and say hello!

 Happy Reading!

Blog Tour: Review and Giveaway -- Anthem's Fall by S.L. Dunn

ABOUT THE BOOK

Above a horrified New York City, genetics and ethics collide as the fallen emperor and a banished exile of the same herculean race ignite into battle over the city’s rooftops. In the streets below, a brilliant young scientist has discovered a technology that can defeat them both, yet might be more terrible than either.
Set both in modern New York City and in the technologically sophisticated yet politically savage world of Anthem, Anthem’s Fall unfurls into a plot where larger than life characters born with the prowess of gods are pitted against the shrewd brilliance of a familiar and unlikely heroine.

AMAZON

Rating

Anthem's Fall... what can I say?... From the very beginning I was stoked to read this book, the synopsis sounds great and who doesn't need a little more sci-fi in their lives? So I got this book in the mail from the author for the tour and he wrote me a wonderful note about loving the green mountain state (where I live/ Vermont) and I was even more excited to read the book. I love when author take notice of things! (Thank you Mr. Dunn!). I finally dig into it while on my vacation and I have to admit, in the beginning I was SUPER confused about how this story would form. 

We start the book on Earth with science and genetics and within those few chapters I came to really like the POV of Kristen, whom is one of the main characters; then we read from another Earthly POV and then are whisked away to another world entirely and they are at war. I felt like my head was spinning, but then the book got interesting -- worlds colliding, characters every which way, and I really liked reading from all of the views and normally that doesn't happen. I normally like one and sigh or 'arg' when another person came up, but not with this book, everyone had an interesting story to tell in the grand scheme of the book. Dunn did a wonderful job linking all these people and what was happening to them.

I am so glad that this book lived up to my expectations for it, but I forewarn, it can be a bit confusing with the amount of characters involved and the plot is action-packed and you will get sucked in. The number of pages may be a bit intimidating and the font on the smaller side, but I think many people will enjoy this book.

--Giveaway is open to US Only. | Must be 13+ to Enter

1 Winner will receive a $50.00 Amazon Gift Card.
14 Winners will receive a Signed Paperback Copy of  Anthem’s Fall by S.L. Dunn.
42 Winners will receive an E-Copy of  Anthem’s Fall by S.L. Dunn. (International)

 a Rafflecopter giveaway

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

S.L. Dunn is the debut author of Anthem’s Fall, a novel he wrote amid the wanderings of his mid twenties. He has written while living intermittently in St. John USVI, Boston, Maine and Seattle. Raised on big screen superheroes and pop science fiction, he sought to create a novel that bridged a near-sci-fi thriller with a grand new fantasy. He currently resides in Seattle with his girlfriend Liz and their dog Lucy, and is hard at work completing the next book of the Anthem’s Fall series.

WEBSITE: http://www.sldunn.com/  
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/sldunnauthor
TWITTER: @SL_Dunn
GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8188589.S_L_Dunn
 

Mini Bloggiesta, July 19-20th -- Plans

It's that time again, July Mini Bloggiesta is happening July 19-20th.

From Bloggiesta:

Join us this next weekend, July 19 and 20, for a fun gathering of bloggers, working feverishly to fix and freshen up their blogs! There’ll be a few new mini challenges, so stay tuned for that list on Friday, but you can also work on any of our past challenges. It’s a perfect time to catch up on challenges you missed during previous Bloggiestas!

We’ll be having one, just one, Twitter party on Sunday, the 20th at 1:00 pm Eastern Time. You know you want to join us because Twitter parties are awesome. Use the hashtag #Bloggiesta and follow @Bloggiesta.

My TO-DO List

• Update my Reviews by Author page
• Refresh my spreadsheet of to-review items
• Check out some mini challenges 
• depending on my Flight back home, try to attend the Twitter party on Sunday - sadly did not get to (sorry everyone)
• Write at least one review for next week
• Back up my Blog (I always forget to do this :/ )

Do you have blog things you need to take care of? You should join us :)

Early Reader Review: Rocket Girl: Volume 1 Times Squared by Amy Reeder

Rocket Girl: Volume 1 Times Squared by Amy Reeder
Series: Rocket Girl Volume 1
Publisher: Diamond Book Distributors
Publication Date:  July 22, 2014

 

Format: ebook
Source: From Netgalley and Diamond Book Distributors in exchange for an honest review. Receiving this ebook in no effects my opinion of the book.

Rating:
 





Goodreads Synopsis: 

A teenage cop from a high-tech future is sent back in time to 1986 New York City. Dayoung Johansson is investigating the Quintum Mechanics megacorporation for crimes against time. As she pieces together the clues, she discovers the "future" she calls home - an alternate reality version of 2014 - shouldn't exist at all!

 Review: 


Dayoung Johansson is Rocket Girl, a teenage cop sent from the future to the 1980s to stop the megacorp Quintum Mechanics from developing a machine that will inevitably lead to her futuristic world and existence. The series is set in a series of flashes between the present (the future) and the past (1986) and the goings on of Rocket Girl, her patrol and the megacorporation behind everything that exists in her world. Dayoung must figure out whom or what she must stop to alter reality, as she knows it and destroy her home time period.

Rocket Girl Volume 1 is a compellation of issues 1-5 and is a wonderful start to this series. Amy Reeder’s art is absolutely stunning and vibrant and the action scenes that take place throughout will surely hold your attention. The story line is great too, the peaks of the story are interesting and thought provoking and even a little over the top and strange when it comes to the futuristic bits, but it was a brilliant story arc in this first volume. I am excited to have found this on Netgalley and hope to grab a copy of Volume 2 when it becomes available.