#BookClub: #Review of Hexed (The Witch Hunter #1) by @MichelleKrys

If high school is all about social status, Indigo Blackwood has it made. Sure, her quirky mom owns an occult shop, and a nerd just won’t stop trying to be her friend, but Indie is a popular cheerleader with a football-star boyfriend and a social circle powerful enough to ruin everyone at school. Who wouldn’t want to be her?
Then a guy dies right before her eyes. And the dusty old family Bible her mom is freakishly possessive of is stolen. But it’s when a frustratingly sexy stranger named Bishop enters Indie’s world that she learns her destiny involves a lot more than pom-poms and parties. If she doesn’t get the Bible back, every witch on the planet will die. And that’s seriously bad news for Indie, because according to Bishop, she’s a witch too.

Suddenly forced into a centuries-old war between witches and sorcerers, Indie’s about to uncover the many dark truths about her life—and a future unlike any she ever imagined on top of the cheer pyramid.

Finished Copy

#BookClub: Hexed (The Witch Hunter #1) by @MichelleKrys

If high school is all about social status, Indigo Blackwood has it made. Sure, her quirky mom owns an occult shop, and a nerd just won’t stop trying to be her friend, but Indie is a popular cheerleader with a football-star boyfriend and a social circle powerful enough to ruin everyone at school. Who wouldn’t want to be her?
Then a guy dies right before her eyes. And the dusty old family Bible her mom is freakishly possessive of is stolen. But it’s when a frustratingly sexy stranger named Bishop enters Indie’s world that she learns her destiny involves a lot more than pom-poms and parties. If she doesn’t get the Bible back, every witch on the planet will die. And that’s seriously bad news for Indie, because according to Bishop, she’s a witch too.

Suddenly forced into a centuries-old war between witches and sorcerers, Indie’s about to uncover the many dark truths about her life—and a future unlike any she ever imagined on top of the cheer pyramid.

Finished Copy

#Review of The Scarlet Tides by David Hair #Giveaway @wunderkindPR

The Moontide has come and the Leviathan Bridge stands open: now thrones will shake and hearts will be torn apart in a world at war.

A scarlet tide of Rondian legions is flooding into the East, led by the Inquisition’s windships flying the Sacred Heart, bright banner of the Church’s darkest sons. They are slaughtering and pillaging their way across Antiopia in the name of Emperor Constant. But the emperor’s greatest treasure, the Scytale of Corineus, has slipped through his fingers and his ruthless Inquisitors must scour two continents for the artefact, the source of all magical power.

Against them are the unlikeliest of heroes. Alaron, a failed mage, the gypsy Cymbellea and Ramita, once just a lowly market-girl, have pledged to end the cycle of war and restore peace to Urte.

East and West have clashed before, but this time, as secret factions and cabals emerge from the shadows, the world is about to discover that love, loyalty and truth can be forged into weapons as strong as swords and magic.

Thanks to Wunderkind PR for the ARC

#Review of Mage's Blood by David Hair #Giveaway @wunderkindPR

Most of the time the Moontide Bridge lies deep below the sea, but every 12 years the tides sink and the bridge is revealed, its gates open for trade. 
The Magi are hell-bent on ruling this new world, and for the last two Moontides they have led armies across the bridge on 'crusades' of conquest. 

Now the third Moontide is almost here and, this time, the people of the East are ready for a fight ... but it is three seemingly ordinary people that will decide the fate of the world.

Thanks to Wunderkind PR for the ARC

#Book & #Movie #Review of How I Live Now by @megrosoff #Thanksto @randomhousekids

This award winning novel will soon be released as a movie starring Saoirse Ronan as Daisy.

Fifteen-year-old New Yorker Daisy is sent to live in the English countryside with cousins she’s never even met. When England is attacked and occupied by an unnamed enemy, the cousins find themselves on their own. Power fails, system fail. As they grow more isolated, the farm becomes a kind of Eden, with no rules. Until the war arrives in their midst.
          Daisy’s is a war story, a survival story, a love story—all told in the voice of a subversive and witty teenager. This book crackles with anxiety and with lust. It’s a stunning and unforgettable first novel that captures the essence of the age of terrorism: how we live now.

{Review} Don't Even Think About It by @SarahMlynowski {Giveaway} @randomhousekids

Contemporary teen fiction with romance, secrets, scandals, and ESP from the author of Ten Things We Did (And Probably Shouldn't Have).

We weren't always like this. We used to be average New York City high school sophomores. Until our homeroom went for flu shots. We were prepared for some side effects. Maybe a headache. Maybe a sore arm. We definitely didn't expect to get telepathic powers. But suddenly we could hear what everyone was thinking. Our friends. Our parents. Our crushes. Now we all know that Tess is in love with her best friend, Teddy. That Mackenzie cheated on Cooper. That, um, Nurse Carmichael used to be a stripper.

Since we've kept our freakish skill a secret, we can sit next to the class brainiac and ace our tests. We can dump our boyfriends right before they dump us. We know what our friends really think of our jeans, our breath, our new bangs. We always know what's coming. Some of us will thrive. Some of us will crack. None of us will ever be the same.
So stop obsessing about your ex. We're always listening.

› Visit Amazon's Sarah Mlynowski Page

Biography

Sarah is the author of both the WHATEVER AFTER and MAGIC IN MANHATTAN series, as well as DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT (March 2014), MILKRUN, FISHBOWL, AS SEEN ON TV, MONKEY BUSINESS, GIMME A CALL, TEN THINGS WE DID (AND PROBABLY SHOULDN'T HAVE) and HOW TO BE BAD (along with E.Lockhart and Lauren Myracle). Sarah's short stories and novellas include A LITTLE BIT BROKEN, A NICE FLING IS HARD TO FIND, KNOW IT ALL and CRUISIN'. Sarah also co-edited the bestselling chick-lit collections GIRLS' NIGHT IN and GIRLS' NIGHT OUT and co-wrote the first ever guide to writing chick lit, SEE JANE WRITE.

Sarah's books have been translated into twenty-one languages and optioned to Hollywood. She was born in Montreal but now lives and writes in New York City.

This was a wonderful Contemporary, YA, Romance, set in Manhattan, NY with a hint of Paranormal.      I loved it!!  So a normal flu shot turned into so much more for a group of students.  They now have telepathic powers. They know all the secrets even that their school nurse used to be a stripper.  Which of course is so not something they wanted to know.  They know what everyone is thinking.  Who cheated on who. Who loves who, etc.  They get some good things via the powers they now carry. Ie. sitting next to the smart kids to get all the answers a test. They can even dump their boyfriends etc before they get dumped themselves.

This was a very cute one of a kind story that I would love to get back into with a second book.  Or even a spin off.  It has humor and seriousness.  And the group of students find out that even though they can hear what everyone is thinking. Having powers might make High School even tougher.


"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own. OR I purchased the book on my own."

Disclaimer: Thanks to Goodreads and Amazon for the book cover, about the book, and author information.

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{Review} Red Rising (Red Rising Trilogy #1) by @Pierce_Brown

Darrow is a miner and a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he digs all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of the planet livable for future generations. Darrow has never seen the sky.

Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better future for his children.

But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow and Reds like him are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.

Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow joins a resistance group in order to infiltrate the ruling class and destroy society from within. He will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies... even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.

› Visit Amazon's Pierce Brown Page

Biography

Pierce Brown spent his childhood building forts and setting traps for his cousins in the woods of six states and the deserts of two. Graduating college in 2010, he fancied the idea of continuing his studies at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a magical bone in his body. So while trying to make it as a writer, he worked as a manager of social media at a startup tech company, toiled as a peon on the Disney lot at ABC Studios, did his time as an NBC page, and gave sleep deprivation a new meaning during his stint as an aide on a U.S. Senate Campaign.

Now he lives in Los Angeles, where he scribbles tales of spaceships, wizards, ghouls, and most things old or bizarre.

www.redrisingbook.com
www.pierce-brown.com

"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

Disclaimer: Thanks to Goodreads and Amazon for the book cover, about the book, and author information.

{Review} Enders (Starters #2) by @Lissa_Price {Giveaway}@NightOwlReviews {Published} @randomhousekids @dana_kaye

Title: Enders
Author: Lissa Price
Series: Starters
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: January 7, 2014
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Source: Night Owl Reviews
Rating: 5 Stars
Description:

With the Prime Destinations body bank destroyed, Callie no longer has to rent herself out to creepy Enders. But Enders can still get inside her mind and make her do things she doesn't want to do. Like hurt someone she loves. Having the chip removed could save Callie's life - but it could also silence the voice in her head that might belong to her father. Callie has flashes of her ex-renter Helena's memories, too ...and the Old Man is back, filling her with fear. Who is real and who is masquerading in a teen body? This is the thrilling sequel to "Starters".

› Amazon | Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Lissa Price’s debut novel STARTERS is an award-winning, international bestseller published in over thirty countries. Dean Koontz called this YA futuristic thriller “a smart, swift, inventive, altogether gripping story.” The LA Times said it is “Dystopian science-fiction at its best,” and “Readers who have been waiting for a worthy successor to ‘The Hunger Games’ will find it here.” 

STARTERS was a Barnes & Noble pick of the month and one of only four debuts on the B&N Best Teen Books of 2012. It was awarded the its Eselsohr for Best YA Book in 2012, selected by a jury of teens in Germany, and was chosen as a top ten favorite book of 2012 by both French and German readers. It won the Crimezone Award for Best YA Thriller and is one of the LAPL's and Chicago Public Library's Best Teen Books of 2012.

Starters was chosen for the IRA Reading List and is the only book nominated for both the Florida Teens Read List and the SSYRA Middle School List 2013-14.

In Germany, Starters launched a brand-new YA imprint of the established Piper Verlag publisher called IVI. Audiobooks have been recorded in English and German.

See the book trailer that played in front of the Hunger Games film in selected theaters in the US and abroad at her site. The release dates for Enders will be announced by the publishers of each country, with some starting in May 2013.

Enders was shorter than Starters but so much better.  We find even more twists and turns and a surprise ending.  It is even set up to come back for a book three if the author so chooses to do so.  I love that fact that there could be a book three or a spin off.  As this world of Starters and Enders is getting really good and it draws you in and makes you want to know more.  As I had said before I would love to have a prequel to learn about their world before the wars.  But in Enders you find out who is the real enemy and who you can trust.  And maybe not all middles died.  This is deff a book that you need to read!! If you love mystery, dynastopian, and a little romance, then this is deff the book for you!


"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

Disclaimer: Thanks to Goodreads and Amazon for the book cover, about the book, and author information.

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{Review} Starters (Starters #1) by @Lissa_Price {Giveaway}@NightOwlReviews {Published} @randomhousekids @dana_kaye

Title: Starters
Author: Lissa Price
Series: Starters
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: July 23, 2013
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
Source: Night Owl Reviews
Rating: 5 Stars
Description:

This edition includes Portrait of a Spore, a never-before-published short story that takes place in the world of STARTERS!

You can’t get them out of your head. . . . 

Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie.
Callie’s only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man. He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders—seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie’s head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter.
Callie soon discovers that her renter intends to do more than party—and that Prime Destinations’ plans are more evil than she could ever have imagined. . . .

› Amazon | Website | Twitter | Goodreads

Lissa Price’s debut novel STARTERS is an award-winning, international bestseller published in over thirty countries. Dean Koontz called this YA futuristic thriller “a smart, swift, inventive, altogether gripping story.” The LA Times said it is “Dystopian science-fiction at its best,” and “Readers who have been waiting for a worthy successor to ‘The Hunger Games’ will find it here.” 

STARTERS was a Barnes & Noble pick of the month and one of only four debuts on the B&N Best Teen Books of 2012. It was awarded the its Eselsohr for Best YA Book in 2012, selected by a jury of teens in Germany, and was chosen as a top ten favorite book of 2012 by both French and German readers. It won the Crimezone Award for Best YA Thriller and is one of the LAPL's and Chicago Public Library's Best Teen Books of 2012.

Starters was chosen for the IRA Reading List and is the only book nominated for both the Florida Teens Read List and the SSYRA Middle School List 2013-14.

In Germany, Starters launched a brand-new YA imprint of the established Piper Verlag publisher called IVI. Audiobooks have been recorded in English and German.

See the book trailer that played in front of the Hunger Games film in selected theaters in the US and abroad at her site. The release dates for Enders will be announced by the publishers of each country, with some starting in May 2013.

Although parts of the story were predictable don't let that stop you from reading this amazing dystopian.  I would have to say that it has hints of Cinderella as well as a little romance, and a whole lot of running for your life!!  This plot/story was so complex but simple.  It was never dull and it just makes you want to read more!!  This is deff a series that I am so happy to have book two Enders due out Jan. 7th.  Because if I had to wait for it I would be crying.  Lissa Price is deff. a fav author after this one.  The plot to Starters is a war had broken out and of course it turned chemical.  So they vaccinated the very young and the very old just like they normally do with things like the flu.  So then when the spore hit they killed off anyone that was aged 20-50 give or take. Starters will leave you asking for more!  I do hope that she adds to this Duo-logy as I would love a prequel.

"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

Disclaimer: Thanks to Goodreads and Amazon for the book cover, about the book, and author information.

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{Review} Tandem @ajarzab

Everything repeats.
You. Your best friend. Every person you know.
Many worlds. Many lives--infinite possibilities.
Welcome to the multiverse.

Sixteen-year-old Sasha Lawson has only ever known one small, ordinary life. When she was young, she loved her grandfather's stories of parallel worlds inhabited by girls who looked like her but led totally different lives. Sasha never believed such worlds were real--until now, when she finds herself thrust into one against her will.

To prevent imminent war, Sasha must slip into the life of an alternate version of herself, a princess who has vanished on the eve of her arranged marriage. If Sasha succeeds in fooling everyone, she will be returned home; if she fails, she'll be trapped in another girl's life forever. As time runs out, Sasha finds herself torn between two worlds, two lives, and two young men vying for her love--one who knows her secret, and one who thinks she's someone she's not.

The first book in the Many-Worlds Trilogy, Tandem is a riveting saga of love and betrayal set in parallel universes in which nothing--and no one--is what it seems.

› Visit Amazon's Anna Jarzab Page

Biography

Anna Jarzab is the author of All Unquiet Things, The Opposite of Hallelujah, and Tandem, book 1 in the new Many-Worlds Trilogy. She lives in New York City and works in children's book publishing. Visit her online at annajarzab.com, follow her on Twitter @ajarzab, and follow her on Tumblr at annajarzab.tumblr.com.

I loved the whole parallel universe thing it was GREAT!  This story was great and Ill be crying until the next one is released.  I ordered a print copy now only to get it signed.  Aliens love and more await the reader when they open this beautiful amazing book!

"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

{Review} Mister Max @randomhousekids

Max Starling's theatrical father likes to say that at twelve a boy is independent. He also likes to boast (about his acting skills, his wife's acting skills, a fortune only his family knows is metaphorical), but more than anything he likes to have adventures. Max Starling's equally theatrical mother is not a boaster but she enjoys a good adventure as much as her husband. When these two disappear, what can sort-of-theatrical Max and his not-at-all theatrical grandmother do? They have to wait to find out something, anything, and to worry, and, in Max's case, to figure out how to earn a living at the same time as he maintains his independence. This is the first of three books, all featuring the mysterious Mister Max.

› Visit Amazon's Cynthia Voigt Page

Biography

Cynthia Voigt won the Newbery Medal for Dicey's Song and the Newbery Honor Award for A Solitary Blue, both part of the beloved Tillerman Cycle. She is also the author of many other celebrated books for middle-grade and teen readers, including Izzy, Willy-Nilly and Jackaroo. She was awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award in 1995 for her work in literature, and the Katahdin Award in 2004. She lives in Maine. 

This book is a great kids mystery.  Easy to read and just a little longer than what I think they could handle.  But, that is deff a good thing!  From setting to plot this book is a great mystery that will get both girls and boys to read!


"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

{Giveaway} My Promised Land @randomhouse

An authoritative and deeply personal narrative history of the State of Israel, by one of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East today
 
Not since Thomas L. Friedman’s groundbreaking From Beirut to Jerusalem has a book captured the essence and the beating heart of the Middle East as keenly and dynamically as My Promised Land. Facing unprecedented internal and external pressures, Israel today is at a moment of existential crisis. Ari Shavit draws on interviews, historical documents, private diaries, and letters, as well as his own family’s story, illuminating the pivotal moments of the Zionist century to tell a riveting narrative that is larger than the sum of its parts: both personal and national, both deeply human and of profound historical dimension.
 
We meet Shavit’s great-grandfather, a British Zionist who in 1897 visited the Holy Land on a Thomas Cook tour and understood that it was the way of the future for his people; the idealist young farmer who bought land from his Arab neighbor in the 1920s to grow the Jaffa oranges that would create Palestine’s booming economy; the visionary youth group leader who, in the 1940s, transformed Masada from the neglected ruins of an extremist sect into a powerful symbol for Zionism; the Palestinian who as a young man in 1948 was driven with his family from his home during the expulsion from Lydda; the immigrant orphans of Europe’s Holocaust, who took on menial work and focused on raising their children to become the leaders of the new state; the pragmatic engineer who was instrumental in developing Israel’s nuclear program in the 1960s, in the only interview he ever gave; the zealous religious Zionists who started the settler movement in the 1970s; the dot-com entrepreneurs and young men and women behind Tel-Aviv’s booming club scene; and today’s architects of Israel’s foreign policy with Iran, whose nuclear threat looms ominously over the tiny country.
 
As it examines the complexities and contradictions of the Israeli condition, My Promised Land asks difficult but important questions: Why did Israel come to be? How did it come to be? Can Israel survive? Culminating with an analysis of the issues and threats that Israel is currently facing, My Promised Land uses the defining events of the past to shed new light on the present. The result is a landmark portrait of a small, vibrant country living on the edge, whose identity and presence play a crucial role in today’s global political landscape.
 
Praise for My Promised Land
 
“This is the epic history that Israel deserves—beautifully written, dramatically rendered, full of moral complexity. Ari Shavit has made a storied career of explaining Israel to Israelis; now he shares his mind-blowing, trustworthy insights with the rest of us. It is the best book on the subject to arrive in many years.”—Franklin Foer, editor, The New Republic
 
“A beautiful, mesmerizing, morally serious, and vexing book. I’ve been waiting most of my adult life for an Israeli to plumb the deepest mysteries of his country’s existence and share his discoveries, and Ari Shavit does so brilliantly, writing simultaneously like a poet and a prophet. My Promised Land is a remarkable achievement.”—Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent, The Atlantic

Ari Shavit is a senior correspondent at Haaretz Newspaper and a member of its editorial board.

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