#BookReview: The Hawthorne Legacy (The Inheritance Games, #2) by @jenlynnbarnes @littlebrown

Synopsis: Intrigue, riches, and romance abound in this thrilling sequel to the New York Times bestselling The Inheritance Games perfect for fans of Karen McManus and Holly Jackson.

The Inheritance Games ended with a bombshell, and now heiress Avery Grambs has to pick up the pieces and find the man who might hold the answers to all of her questions - including why Tobias Hawthorne left his entire fortune to Avery, a virtual stranger, rather than to his own daughters or grandsons.

Thanks to a DNA test, Avery knows that she's not a Hawthorne by blood, but clues pile up hinting at a deeper connection to the family than she had ever imagined. As the mystery grows and the plot thickens, Grayson and Jameson, the enigmatic and magnetic Hawthorne grandsons, continue to pull Avery in different directions. And there are threats lurking around every corner, as adversaries emerge who will stop at nothing to see Avery out of the picture - by any means necessary.

With nonstop action, aspirational jet-setting, family intrigue, swoonworthy romance, and billions of dollars hanging in the balance, The Hawthorne Legacy will thrill Jennifer Lynn Barnes fans and new readers alike.

#BookReview: Dragonswan (Dark-Hunter, #2.5) by @mysherrilyn

Synopsis: Channon (Shannon with C) MacRea has spent years studying the legendary Dragon Tapestry, deciphering Old English symbolism. One evening delectable Sebastian Kattalakis appears -- a dragon slayer trapped between two worlds -- claims to hold the key to solving the tapestry’s mysteries. Channon follows him into a fantastic alternate world of magic, danger, and adventure.
Also in:
* In Other Worlds anthology
Collector's-edition.

#BookReview: The Shadow Cabinet (Her Majesty's Royal Coven #2) by Juno Dawson @penguinusa

Synopsis: In the second installment of Juno Dawson's irresistable fantasy trilogy (Lana Harper), a group of childhood friends and witches must choose between what is right and what is easy if they have any hope of keeping their coven--and their world--from tearing apart forever.

Niamh Kelly is dead. Her troubled twin, Ciara, now masquerades as the benevolent witch as Her Majesty's Royal Coven prepares to crown her High Preistess.

Suffering from amnesia, Ciara can't remember what she's done--but if she wants to survive, she must fool Niamh's adopted family and friends; the coven; and the murky Shadow Cabinet--a secret group of mundane civil servants who are already suspicious of witches. While she tries to rebuild her past, she realizes none of her past has forgotten her, including her former lover, renegade warlock Dabney Hale.

On the other end of the continent, Leonie Jackman is in search of Hale, rumored to be seeking a dark object of ultimate power somehow connected to the upper echelons of the British government. If the witches can't figure out Hale's machinations, and fast, all of witchkind will be in grave danger--along with the fate of all (wo)mankind.

Sharp, funny, provocative, and joyous, Juno Dawson's sequel reimagines everything you think you knew about her coven and her witches in a story that spans continents and dives deep into the roots of England and its witchcraft. Ciara, Leonie, Elle, and Theo are fierce, angry, sexy, warm--and absolutely unapologetic as they fight for what they believe in, all in the name of sisterhood.

#BookReview: Rival (Fall Away #2) by Penelope Douglas

Synopsis: From the New Adult sensation and New York Times bestselling author of Until You

Madoc and Fallon. Two estranged teenagers playing games that push the boundaries between love and war…

She’s back.

For the two years she’s been away at boarding school, there was no word from her. Back when we lived in the same house, she used to cut me down during the day and then leave her door open for me at night.

I was stupid then, but now I’m ready to beat her at her own game…

I’m back.

Two years and I can tell he still wants me, even if he acts like he’s better than me.

But I won’t be scared away. Or pushed down. I’ll call his bluff and fight back. That’s what he wants, right? As long as I keep my guard up, he’ll never know how much he affects me….

#BookReview: Dragonswan (Were-Hunter #0.5) by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Synopsis: Channon (Shannon with C) MacRea has spent years studying the legendary Dragon Tapestry, deciphering Old English symbolism. One evening delectable Sebastian Kattalakis appears -- a dragon slayer trapped between two worlds -- claims to hold the key to solving the tapestry’s mysteries. Channon follows him into a fantastic alternate world of magic, danger, and adventure.
Also in:
* In Other Worlds anthology
Collector's-edition.

#BookReview: Ballad for Sophie by Filipe Melo, Juan Cavia (Illustrations)

Synopsis: A young journalist prompts a reclusive piano superstar to open up, resulting in this stunning graphic sonata exploring a lifetime of rivalry, regret, and redemption.

1933. In the small French village of Cressy-la-Valoise, a local piano contest brings together two brilliant young players: Julien Dubois, the privileged heir of a wealthy family, and François Samson, the janitor's son. One wins, one loses, and both are changed forever.

1997. In a huge mansion stained with cigarette smoke and memories, a bitter old man is shaken by the unexpected visit of an interviewer. Somewhere between reality and fantasy, Julien composes, like in a musical score, a complex and moving story about the cost of success, rivalry, redemption, and flying pianos.

When all is said and done, did anyone ever truly win? And is there any music left to play? 


This title will be released on September 28, 2021.

#BookReview: Team BFF: Race to the Finish! (Girls Who Code #2) by @staciadeutsch

Synopsis: Perfect for fans of The Babysitters Club and anyone interested in computer science, this series is published in partnership with the organization Girls Who Code!

Sophia and her coding club BFFs have the best time together. Sure, they work on coding projects, but mostly they gossip about crushes, eat cookies, and do totally silly impersonations. Now they're about to participate in their first hackathon--a full day of coding and meeting other coders--so it's time to step up their game! 
Just when Sophia and her friends think their hackathon project is ready for the big time, a change of plans threatens to tear their group apart. Will they have each other's backs, or are they destined for an epic fail? They know that coding is all about teamwork and problem-solving--maybe friendship is, too!

#BookReview: The Upper World (The Upper World #1) by Femi Fadugba

Synopsis: Esso is running out of time and into trouble. After he is accidentally caught up in a gang war, he is haunted by a vision of a bullet fired in an alleyway with devastating consequences.

A generation later, fifteen-year-old football prodigy Rhia is desperately searching for answers—and a catastrophic moment from the past holds the key to understanding the parents she never got to meet.

Whether on the roads of South London or in the mysterious Upper World, Esso and Rhia''s fates must collide.

And when they do, a race against the clock will become a race against time itself...

#BookReview: Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

Synopsis: #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything and The Sun is Also a Star Nicola Yoon is back with her eagerly anticipated third novel. With all the heart and hope of her last two books, this is an utterly unique romance.

Evie Thomas doesn't believe in love anymore. Especially after the strangest thing occurs one otherwise ordinary afternoon: She witnesses a couple kiss and is overcome with a vision of how their romance began . . . and how it will end. After all, even the greatest love stories end with a broken heart, eventually.

As Evie tries to understand why this is happening, she finds herself at La Brea Dance studio, learning to waltz, fox-trot, and tango with a boy named X. X is everything that Evie is not: adventurous, passionate, daring. His philosophy is to say yes to everything--including entering a ballroom dance competition with a girl he's only just met.

Falling for X is definitely not what Evie had in mind. If her visions of heartbreak have taught her anything, it's that no one escapes love unscathed. But as she and X dance around and toward each other, Evie is forced to question all she thought she knew about life and love. In the end, is love worth the risk?

#BookReview: Instructions for Dancing by @NicolaYoon

Synopsis: #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything and The Sun is Also a Star Nicola Yoon is back with her eagerly anticipated third novel. With all the heart and hope of her last two books, this is an utterly unique romance.

Evie Thomas doesn't believe in love anymore. Especially after the strangest thing occurs one otherwise ordinary afternoon: She witnesses a couple kiss and is overcome with a vision of how their romance began . . . and how it will end. After all, even the greatest love stories end with a broken heart, eventually.

As Evie tries to understand why this is happening, she finds herself at La Brea Dance studio, learning to waltz, fox-trot, and tango with a boy named X. X is everything that Evie is not: adventurous, passionate, daring. His philosophy is to say yes to everything--including entering a ballroom dance competition with a girl he's only just met.

Falling for X is definitely not what Evie had in mind. If her visions of heartbreak have taught her anything, it's that no one escapes love unscathed. But as she and X dance around and toward each other, Evie is forced to question all she thought she knew about life and love. In the end, is love worth the risk?

#BookReview: Adèle by Leïla Slimani, Sam Taylor

Synopsis: Adèle appears to have the perfect life: She is a successful journalist in Paris who lives in a beautiful apartment with her surgeon husband and their young son. But underneath the surface, she is bored--and consumed by an insatiable need for sex.

Driven less by pleasure than compulsion, Adèle organizes her day around her extramarital affairs, arriving late to work and lying to her husband about where she's been, until she becomes ensnared in a trap of her own making. Suspenseful, erotic, and electrically charged, Adèle is a captivating exploration of addiction, sexuality, and one woman's quest to feel alive.

#BookReview: Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood #1) by J.R. Ward

Synopsis: The only purebred vampire left on the planet and the leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, Wrath has a score to settle with the slayers who killed his parents centuries ago. But when his most trusted fighter is killed—orphaning a half-breed daughter unaware of her heritage or her fate—Wrath must put down his dagger and usher the beautiful female into another world.

Racked by a restlessness in her body that wasn’t there before, Beth Randall is helpless against the dangerously sexy man who comes to her at night with shadows in his eyes. His tales of the Brotherhood and blood frighten her. Yet his touch ignites a dawning new hunger—one that threatens to consume them both…

#BookReview for Aftermath by @KelleyArmstrong

Synopsis: Three years after losing her brother Luka in a school shooting, Skye Gilchrist is moving home. 

But there's no sympathy for Skye and her family because Luka wasn't a victim; he was a shooter. 

Jesse Mandal knows all too well that the scars of the past don't heal easily. 

The shooting cost Jesse his brother and his best friend--Skye.

Ripped apart by tragedy, Jesse and Skye can't resist reopening the mysteries of their past. 

But old wounds hide darker secrets. 

And the closer Skye and Jesse get to the truth of what happened that day, the closer they get to a new killer. 

#BookReview for Flame in the Mist (Flame in the Mist #1) by Renée Ahdieh

Synopsis: The only daughter of a prominent samurai, Mariko has always known she’d been raised for one purpose and one purpose only: to marry. Never mind her cunning, which rivals that of her twin brother, Kenshin, or her skills as an accomplished alchemist. Since Mariko was not born a boy, her fate was sealed the moment she drew her first breath.

So, at just seventeen years old, Mariko is sent to the imperial palace to meet her betrothed, a man she did not choose, for the very first time. But the journey is cut short when Mariko’s convoy is viciously attacked by the Black Clan, a dangerous group of bandits who’ve been hired to kill Mariko before she reaches the palace.

The lone survivor, Mariko narrowly escapes to the woods, where she plots her revenge. Dressed as a peasant boy, she sets out to infiltrate the Black Clan and hunt down those responsible for the target on her back. Once she’s within their ranks, though, Mariko finds for the first time she’s appreciated for her intellect and abilities. She even finds herself falling in love—a love that will force her to question everything she’s ever known about her family, her purpose, and her deepest desires.

Add to Goodreads
Buy from Amazon

  

#BookReview: A Line in the Dark by Malinda Lo

Title: A Line in the Dark

Author: Malinda Lo
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, LGBT
Pages: Hardcover, 288 pages
Pub Date: October 17th 2017
Publisher:  Dutton Books for Young Readers
Book Source: Purchased
My Rating: 3 Stars

Add to Goodreads | Buy from Amazon

Synopsis: The line between best friend and something more is a line always crossed in the dark.

Jess Wong is Angie Redmond’s best friend. And that’s the most important thing, even if Angie can’t see how Jess truly feels. Being the girl no one quite notices is OK with Jess anyway. While nobody notices her, she’s free to watch everyone else. But when Angie begins to fall for Margot Adams, a girl from the nearby boarding school, Jess can see it coming a mile away. Suddenly her powers of observation are more curse than gift.

As Angie drags Jess further into Margot’s circle, Jess discovers more than her friend’s growing crush. Secrets and cruelty lie just beneath the carefree surface of this world of wealth and privilege, and when they come out, Jess knows Angie won’t be able to handle the consequences.

When the inevitable darkness finally descends, Angie will need her best friend.

“It doesn’t even matter that she probably doesn’t understand how much she means to me. It’s purer this way. She can take whatever she wants from me, whenever she wants it, because I’m her best friend.”

A Line in the Dark is a story of love, loyalty, and murder.

#BookReview: The Sacrifice Box by Martin Stewart

Reviewed By: Jessica P. 

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers 

Recommended Age: Young Adult

Genre: Horror 

Goodreads | Amazon

About the Book:

A horror story about friendship, growing up, and finding a place in the world: Gremlins meets The Breakfast Club by way of Stephen King and Stranger Things.

1982, the summer before seventh grade. Five kids with nothing in common--Sep, Arkle, Hadley, Lamb, and Mack--become instant friends. On the last day of summer, they find a stone box buried in the forest, and each places an object inside to seal their friendship. And they make rules:

Never come to the box alone. 
Never open it after dark. 
Never take back your sacrifice.

1986, the summer before eleventh grade. The five haven't spoken since that day in 1982. Sep has gone through the past four years alone and plans to escape to boarding school. But strange things are happening--mirrors are breaking unexpectedly, electricity is flickering in and out, and people are coming down with inexplicable physical ailments.

Someone has broken the rules. And it seems the five committed more than objects to the box's ancient stone--they gave it their deepest secrets and darkest fears, and now these are being returned in a flood of shambling corpses, murderous toys, and undead pets. The gang must reunite in an attempt to discover the secrets of the sacrifice box--and Sep might be the only one who can stem its tide of evil before it's too late.

Tour: Blood Will Out by @JoTreggiari @JeanBookNerd #Giveaway

Reviewed By: Jessica P. 

Publisher: Penguin Teen

Recommended Age: Young Adult 

Genre: Thriller, Horror

Goodreads | Amazon

About the Book:

Ari Sullivan is alive—for now.

She wakes at the bottom of a cistern, confused, injured and alone, with only the shadowy recollection of a low-pitched voice and a gloved hand. No one can hear her screams. And the person who put her there is coming back. The killer is planning a gruesome masterpiece, a fairytale tableau of innocence and blood, meticulously designed.

Until now, Ari was happy to spend her days pining for handsome, recent-arrival Stroud Bellows, fantasizing about their two-point-four-kids-future together. Safe in her small hometown of Dempsey Hollow. But now her community has turned very dangerous—and Ari may not be the only intended victim.

Join the #YABC @winterhavenlib at 5pm tonight! The Dark Days Club (Lady Helen #1) by Alison Goodman #BookReview

About the Book:

New York Times bestseller Alison Goodman’s eagerly awaited new project: a Regency adventure starring a stylish and intrepid demon-hunter!

London, April 1812. 

On the eve of eighteen-year-old Lady Helen Wrexhall’s presentation to the queen, one of her family’s housemaids disappears-and Helen is drawn into the shadows of Regency London. 

There, she meets Lord Carlston, one of the few who can stop the perpetrators: a cabal of demons infiltrating every level of society. 

Dare she ask for his help, when his reputation is almost as black as his lingering eyes? 

And will her intelligence and headstrong curiosity wind up leading them into a death trap? 

#BookReview: Gudetama's Guide to Life by Brian Elling

About the Book:

From Sanrio, who brought you Hello Kitty, Gudetama the Lazy Egg returns with a guidebook to living life to the almost fullest.

In Japanese, when you're lazy, you are referred to as gude gude. Gudetama (tama from "tamago," egg in Japanese) is the lazy egg. 

Gudetama likes soy sauce and being left alone. Sometimes, Gudetama wonders if we are born only to suffer.

Each page of this book is kind of packed with helpful lessons, inspiring quotes and mind-blowing advice that will have you laying around like an egg in no time! 

And all of it comes straight from the yolk of a Gudetama!

#BookReview: Eggsistential Thoughts by Gudetama the Lazy Egg by Francesco Sedita, Max Bisantz

About the Book:

Meh . . .

From Sanrio, who brought you Hello Kitty, comes Gudetama, the lazy egg. 

Not all Sanrio characters are cheery! In Japanese, when you're lazy, you are referred to as gude gude. 

And that's where our new friend gets its name. 

Gudetama (tama from "tamago," egg in Japanese) is the lazy egg. Gudetama likes soy sauce and being left alone. 

Sometimes, Gudetama wonders if we are born only to suffer. 

And here, in Eggsistential Thoughts, are Gudetama's musings on life.