#MonthlyRoundUp! March 2016

Welcome to my Monthly Round Up post.  So March really did come in like a lion!  From bills to kids getting sick again to my husband having issues it was a nightmare!  So this month's round up is going to be a little different.  The disaster of last months video is soon not happening again.  So for the time being these will stay as posts. Its safer that way.  So I hope you enjoy seeing the highlights of last month. 

#TakeControlTBR: Updates with A Thousand Pieces of You

So this past week has been crazy were finalizing things for BEA/Bookcon and I'm trying to get through as many books as I own so I can take the ones I don't want to the used bookstore to sell them off grab some others I might want and well have some extra money for the trip to Chicago. 

Dreamfire (Dreamfire #1) by Kit Alloway #Review

Genres: Fantasy Pages: 368 Source: Purchased Add it to Goodreads Joshlyn Weaver has always lived with a big secret. Ordinary kids spend their free time going to the movies, hanging out with friends, and searching on the internet.  

But for her, an evening at home usually means entering people's dreams. For many generations, her family has been part of a very powerful and very secretive society of dream walkers. Tasked with the responsibility of lowering the world's general anxiety — which only leads to war and strife in the waking world — their job has always been to stop nightmares before they go too far.
By stopping nightmares while sleeping, they help to stop nightmares in real life. 

But when an ancient feud within the dream walker society resurfaces right when a seemingly unconnected series of very strange and very scary events start occurring during her dream walks, Josh finds herself in a race against time. The one true dream walker has never been known. Could she be the one?

#Review of Chicago: A Novel by Brian Doyle & #Giveaway via @StMartinsPress

“In this gorgeous novel, the protagonist is the setting. Although it’s full of interesting characters and surprising events, and the narrative is spun with great skill, the true spell it casts on the reader is the spell of atmosphere, its portrait of a time and place so complete that this becomes reading experience that feels like a life experience—the details are that vivid, and the immersion that complete. Chicago is memorable, original, and full of passionate exploration.” —Laura Kasischke, National Book Critics Circle Award winner for Space, In Chains

On the last day of summer, some years ago, a young college graduate moves to Chicago and rents a small apartment on the north side of the city, by the vast and muscular lake. This is the story of the five seasons he lives there, during which he meets gangsters, gamblers, policemen, a brave and garrulous bus driver, a cricket player, a librettist, his first girlfriend, a shy apartment manager, and many other riveting souls, not to mention a wise and personable dog of indeterminate breed.

A love letter to Chicago, the Great American City, and a wry account of a young man's coming-of-age during the one summer in White Sox history when they had the best outfield in baseball, Brian Doyle's Chicago is a novel that will plunge you into a city you will never forget, and may well wish to visit for the rest of your days.

#Review of Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Alamo All-Stars (#6) by @mrnathanhale

From Nathan Hale, #1 New York Times bestselling author and Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List maker, comes the definitive graphic novel about the Alamo.
 
Hale relays the facts, politics, military actions, and prominent personalities that defined the Texas Revolution in factual yet humorous scenes that will capture the attention of reluctant readers and fans of history alike.
 
In the early 1800s, Texas was a wild and dangerous land fought over by the Mexican government, Native Americans, and settlers from the United States. Beginning with the expeditions of the so-called “Land Pirates,” through the doomed stand at the Alamo, and ending with the victory over Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto, the entire Texas saga is on display. Leading the charge to settle this new frontier is Stephen F. Austin, with a cast of dangerous and colorful characters, including Jim Bowie, William Travis, David Crockett, and others.
 
Through his vivid depiction and additional maps, and biographies located in the back of the book, Nathan Hale brings new insight for students, teachers, and historians into one of the most iconic structures in the United States.

#Review of Character, Driven by David Lubar

“Call me Cliff. By an accident of birth, I am well named for this story. Think about it. Cliff. Precipice. Edge. There you have it. I’m Cliff. Cliff Sparks.”

With only one year left of high school, seventeen-year-old Cliff Sparks is desperate to “come of age”―and find a girlfriend. But he’s never had much luck with girls. So when he falls for Jillian, a new classmate, at first sight, all he can do is worship her from afar. At the same time, Cliff has to figure out what to do with the rest of his life, since he’s pretty sure his unemployed father plans to kick him out of the house the minute he turns eighteen.

Time is running out for Cliff. He’s at the edge, on the verge, dangling―and holding on for dear life.