Book Review- Vampire’s Kiss

28 Mar, 2012 by in nal, vampire's kiss, veronica wolff, YA fiction 3 comments

Vampire’s Kiss
by Veronica Wolff
Paperback, 304 pages
Published:  March 6th 2012
by NAL
ISBN  045123572X
Book Source: Publisher
3.5 Stars
Book Summary From Goodreads: As someone who has survived her first year as an Acari recruit, Drew’s ultimate goal is to become a Watcher and be paired up with a Vampire agent. Except nothing is as it seems. The vampire Alcántara is as sinister as he is sexy, Ronan is more distant than ever, and it turns out there are other vampires out there. Bad ones. They’ve captured one of the Watcher vamps and are torturing him for information-and Drew is going undercover to rescue him.
But when their vampire prisoner turns out to be a gorgeous bad boy, Drew’s first mission quickly turns into more than she bargained for…
Review by ephrielle:  In this novel, vampires take their rightful place on the evil shelf. That doesn’t mean they are cookie cutter vampires from the old days. The vampires have set up a training compound where they collect runaways and put them through intensive training. Don’t imagine they are doing the runaways any favors. They aren’t giving them life skills; more like using them for entertainment and food.


Life is hard for Annelise: her fellow initiates are trying to kill her, undead creatures are trying to eat her, she is training to be a Watcher, and she is walking a fine line of obedience to the vampires. Apparently that isn’t enough to keep her busy since she has a slew of love woes which I have illustrated here:
(In case you can’t decipher my masterful art.)
Yasuo (baby vampire)- Eww, not interested, he’s my best bud.
Ronan (mesmerizer)- I LUV him!
Alcantara (vampire)- You disgust me… you disgust me not.
Josh (baby vampire)- Maybe.
Carden (vampire)- We are bound by chains of love, my hunky skeleton man.
She manages to get around without actually getting around. Is that possible? At least there isn’t a love triangle. How can you fall in love with someone who will either eat you or torture you without a pang? Especially when those same people see you as little more than a toy or possession? Alcantara is a piece of work. He has some game afoot and when it is fully laid out it will be a doozy. I don’t trust that fellow for one minute. He is too sly and too perfect at playing a person right into his hands. The best character is Carden McCloud, who doesn’t show up until the end of the book, but he is worth the wait. Perhaps I have been infected with her crazy since I like the skeleton. I want to read the next book just to spend more time getting to know Carden.
It seems to me that the bullying in this story is caused by their desperate need for control. They are helpless and at the mercy of evil beings.
One downside to this novel is a smattering of mentionings of current fictional events, such as Voldemort or Twilight. It doesn’t add to the story, but breaks the dividing line between reality and this fictional world. Thankfully, these references are only near the beginning of the book. The evil verses more evil was something I couldn’t understand. I didn’t see any difference between vampires. They were all evil and cruel.
Nothing is as it seems. Everyone has more secrets than truth on the table. There is quite a bit of terror and etiquette. For the most part, the book focuses on romance or the lack of commitment in that area. Even so, there is enough story and a good pace to make the pages slip by quickly. What tortures await for these characters in the next book?
Content: moderate swearing, bullying, and heavy violence

About the author: Once upon a time there was a girl. She liked horses and Shaun Cassidy and Gunne Sax dresses, like many of the other girls her age. She had a big, loving family and, since their dad was in the Navy, they moved around. A lot. She was shy, though, and generally preferred a day spent in the company of her Trixie Belden books to running around with the other kids, whom she really didn’t know very well anyway.

She grew up and she still preferred the company of books, so she read, and she read some more, and she loved romantic stories, and stories about dragons and young men on quests, and stories by Jane and Daphne and Emily and Charlotte. But this girl realized that seeing all different kinds of places and all different kinds of people had become a part of who she was, and so she studied languages and art from faraway places. But she could be dramatic, and so she decided to study all of that while living in India. And then she studied in India again. For a long time. And she thought that, when she grew up some more, she would be a fancy professor and write linguistic papers and teach students about art and do other fancy-professor things.

But first she moved to California, where she had never been, because it seemed the place to move to start such a new and fabulous life. And she got a job to pay the rent. She discovered she still loved books that drew her in, and made her cry, and kept her awake till she had to scrunch her eyebrows to see the words clearly. And she realized too that she much preferred those books to the ones that mostly just taught her stuff and made her feel anxious that she wasn’t busy making grand statements in grand journals. And while she was figuring all this out, she needed money, and so she did what many of the other girls in California were doing and she got a job doing Internet stuff.

And she met her hero, and they married, and they got some pets and had some kids. But she still liked to go places in her mind as she stared out the window while doing things like washing bottles and burping babies, and so she started writing a story. And you can imagine the rest.

Now that she’s grown up, she likes to see movies and read books, cut flowers from her garden, spend time with friends and drink wine, and go snowboarding. Not all at the same time of course. And she still loves stories about dragons, but mostly she loves stories about love.

Find more about author Veronica Wolff on Goodreads/ Twitter/ Website/ Facebook

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Awkward Blog Tour and Playlist

27 Mar, 2012 by in marni bates, playlist Leave a comment

Fire and Ice is one of today’s stops on the official blog tour for

Awkward
by Marni Bates

Paperback, 300 pages
Published January 1st 2012
by Kensington Publishing Corp.
ISBN 0758269374
Book Summary: Mackenzie Wellesley has spent her life avoiding the spotlight. At Smith High, she’s the awkward junior people only notice when they need help with homework. Until she sends a burly football player flying with her massive backpack and makes a disastrous – not to mention unwelcome – attempt at CPR. Before the day is out, the whole fiasco explodes on YouTube. And then the strangest thing happens. Suddenly, Mackenzie is an Internet sensation, with four million hits and counting. Sucked into a whirlwind of rock stars, paparazzi, and free designer clothes, she even catches the eye of the most popular guy at school. And that’s when life gets really interesting…

Here at Fire and Ice we had  author Marni Bates come up with a playlist of songs she feels fit Awkward. She says…”I love finding music that fits my novels! And when I stumble across a song that connects to my life, I listen to it obsessively.

So here’s my playlist for Awkward:

Starz in Their Eyes ~ Just Jack. This song definitely inspired me to write Awkward because it’s about the way people can manipulate you when you reach a certain level of notoriety. I definitely see Mackenzie as someone with stars in her eyes when her YouTube video garners four million hits.

Solo Impala (Take the Money and Run) ~ The Fashion. I couldn’t resist referencing The Fashion in the book. I love the sense of energy and urgency in this song. I think a part of Mackenzie wants to take the money her newly acquired fame could bring and run. But beyond that . . . this song really has nothing to do with the book. I just love it.

Sideways ~ Let’s Go Sailing Okay, I always think about Mackenzie and Logan when I hear this song and not in a happy, bubbly way but in an I’m-about-to-bawl-my-eyes-out way. I listened to it on repeat when Kenzie finally figures out that she likes Logan . . . and thinks that he’s back together with Chelsea.

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart ~ Wilco Another heartbreak song. I always pictured Mackenzie listening to this during quiet moments on the bus with ReadySet and Corey. (Spoiler alert! It comes up in Jane’s book, Invisible.)

The Show ~ Lenka I think this song encapsulates Awkward so well! Here’s a sampling of the lyrics: I’m just a little bit caught in the middle Life is a maze and love is a riddle. I don’t know where to go, can’t do it alone. I’ve tried. And I don’t know why . . . It fit the story so well that I used it in my homemade book trailer.

Overboard ~ Ingrid Michaelson I almost used this song for the book trailer. In fact, I was tempted to use almost every single Ingrid Michaelson song. If you haven’t listened to her, you should remedy that immediately. Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles provide the soundtrack to my life. Both of them have wonderful songs with clever lyrics. In fact . . .

Gonna Get Over You ~ Sara Bareilles (or “Uncharted.” It’s so hard to pick just one song!) I think of this as Mackenzie’s victory song when she finally realizes that she doesn’t have to spend her life fearing the Notables. It’s also her anti-Patrick song. Love it! (Spoiler alert! If things hadn’t worked out with Logan, I think Mackenzie would have listened to this song and pulled herself back together. It wouldn’t have been easy, but she’s a strong girl. Although I’m still glad she didn’t have to do it!)

A Million Ways (to be Cruel) ~OK Go I totally geeked out when Awkward readers asked me if ReadySet was modeled on OK Go. The answer: yes! If you guessed this, you win major bragging rights!
I’ve been an OK Go fan for years so I guess it was only natural for them to spring to mind when I started to create my fictional rock band. Naming them ReadySet was an intentional homage . . . and I’m thrilled that people picked up on it!

For those of you unfamiliar with their work: YouTube the following: Here it Goes Again, White Knuckles, and This Too Shall Pass. You won’t be disappointed! I think A Million Ways to be Cruel might be the most fitting for Chelsea Halloway (the reigning Notable queen, Mackenzie’s nemesis, and the main protagonist of book four). She knows exactly how to use people’s weaknesses to her advantage but she still hasn’t figured out how to battle her own insecurities. There might be a million ways to be cruel but what Chelsea will have to face is a lot harder than high school!

Ben Fold fans? Chelsea listens to You Don’t Know Me on a very important airplane flight in Notable. And I imagine Go Places by The New Pornographers and Home by OK Sweetheart as part of her travel music. Sorry, I tend to focus solely on music for my work in progress. Which is actually calling my name right now . . .

Bye! ~Marni

Get a playlist! Standalone player Get Ringtones

Thanks so much to Marni Bates for sharing all of her fun song choices with us and Chick Loves Lit for asking us to be a part of the tour! Be sure to check out the rest of the stops on the Awkward blog tour here

Author Bio: My autobiography MARNI (part of HCI’s Louder Than Words series) was on the New York Public Library Stuff for the Teen Age 2010 List. I then signed a four book contract with KTeen and my first YA novel AWKWARD comes out January 1, 2012. In my free time I can be found reading romance novels, rollerblading, singing really loudly (and off-key) in public and . . . watching copious amounts of television.

Find Marni Bates on Twitter / Goodreads/ MarniBates.com

Emerald City Blog Tour and Author Guest Post

26 Mar, 2012 by in book review 1 comment

Fire and Ice is today’s stop on the Emerald City blog tour. We are excited to have author Alicia K Leppert on our site today talking about the locations she used in her book and where they came from…

Emerald City
by Alicia K. Leppert
Hardcover, 320 pages
Expected publication: April 10th 2012
by Sweetwater Books ISBN1599558645
Book Source: Publisher
Book Summary from author’s website: Olivia Tate is a broken shell of a girl haunted by the tragic events that fill her past. She has closed herself off from the world, each day grasping at something—anything—to live for. Convinced there will never be a way out, she seeks solace in the depths of her medicine cabinet. When she wakes up days later in the hospital she is introduced to Jude, the quiet stranger responsible for saving her life. She never could have guessed then that her mysterious rescuer would end up saving her life a second time, while simultaneously turning her world upside down. A modern-day romance with a twist, Emerald City has a little bit of something for everyone!
Author Guest Post: ” I had a lot of fun picking locations in my book, and each one came from some memory or personal experience I’ve had in my lifetime. Much of the book takes place in Olivia’s apartment, which actually was something I just dreamed up based on studio apartments I’ve seen on TV and in movies. I’ve always had a thing for lofts and studio apartments in big cities, with brick or concrete walls. Although Olivia’s apartment is nothing as grand as the ones I dream about, it was roughly based on those.
The coffee shop she works in was based on a coffee shop I had breakfast in in Seattle about 12 years ago when I was visiting my sister and her family. They’re probably about a dime a dozen in the Seattle area, but whenever I wrote about Olivia at work, I thought of the coffee shop from that specific visit.
The mansion on the lake that Jude takes Olivia to is actually based on the gorgeous houses down the street from where I grew up, along the Columbia River. These houses are huge and amazing and have all those things you dream about having, like theater rooms and swimming pools and arcades. And since they’re on the river, they always have huge glass windows on the back walls, overlooking the water.
A personal favorite of mine is the location of their first “date,” on the pier. It was largely based on my husband’s and my first real date. We drove to Seattle and had dinner at Red Robin on the pier, then went on the Argosy Cruise around Puget Sound. While we waited for the cruise to start, we hung out on the pier looking out at the sound, and my husband (fiance at the time) carved our names into the wooden railing of the pier. The seafood restaurant Jude and Olivia eat at, however, was based on a restaurant we’ve visited many times at the Oregon Coast in Lincoln City.
That’s about it for the locations that had any kind of significance. All others came from some corner of my memory or imagination. But all were equally fun to create!
Alicia K Leppert’s Bio: I always knew I wanted to be a writer, ever since Career Day in first grade when I walked around carrying a notebook and pencil. Twenty-some odd years later, after a short stint in high school where I dreamed of being an actress, a whirlwind Internet romance including a blind proposal that led to a fairytale wedding and two pretty-near perfect kids, my lifelong dream came to fruition with my first novel, Emerald City. I live with my small brood in my beloved hometown of Pasco, which is located in the only part of Washington state that isn’t green. When I’m not writing, I can be found decorating novelty cakes and taking naps–my other two passions.

Find out more on Goodreads/ author’s website/ Twitter/ Facebook/ The Publisher

 

Book Preview- Spellcaster

26 Mar, 2012 by in spellcaster 2 comments

Spellcaster
by Cara Lynn Shultz
E-book, 376 pages
Publication Date: March 27th , 2012
by Harlequin Teen
ISBN 0373210507
Book Source: publisher
3 Stars
Book summary from Goodreads: Finding your eternal soulmate – easy.

Stopping a true-love-hungry evil – not so much…

After breaking a centuries-old romantic curse, Emma Connor is (almost) glad to get back to normal problems. Although…it’s not easy dealing with the jealous cliques and gossip that rule her exclusive Upper East Side prep, even for a sixteen-year-old newbie witch. Having the most-wanted boy in school as her eternal soul mate sure helps ease the pain-especially since wealthy, rocker-hot Brendan Salinger is very good at staying irresistibly close….

But something dark and hungry is using Emma and Brendan’s deepest fears to reveal damaging secrets and destroy their trust in each other. And Emma’s crash course in über-spells may not be enough to keep them safe…or to stop an inhuman force bent on making their unsuspected power its own

Crystal’s Review: How far would you go to protect your one true soul mate? This is exactly what Emma must decide in Spellcaster, book number two, of Cara Shultz’s Spellbound series. There is something evil out destroy Emma and Brendan and only Emma can stop it. The one thing she has going for her is that she is a witch so she has magic on her side. She is a new witch though and she has not quite mastered her powers. Every chapter of this book keeps the reader on their toes. There is never a dull moment for Emma, Brendan and her best friend Angelique. Will she be able to learn to control and use her powers before its too late? You are going to have to read Spellcaster to find out! On a side note while you do not necessarily have to read the first book in the series to be captivated by this one I would suggest you do as I know it is just as good as this one.
Content: mild sexual situations, moderate swearing.

Crystal
About the author: Cara Lynn Shultz’s love of supernatural writing began when she was 7 and wrote a play about ghosts, which she and her friends acted out on her grandparents’ porch. Since then, her work has appeared in Teen People, Alternative Press, Stuff, InStyle, Us Weekly, and The Guardian UK.She is a proud graduate of Fordham University and is currently a senior editor at People.com.Cara lives in her native New York City with her husband, tuxedo cat and 8 million other people. Spellbound is her first novel.

Review- Intangible by J. Meyers

22 Mar, 2012 by in Uncategorized 4 comments

Intangible
by J. Meyers
Ebook, 340 pages
Publication Date: January 31st 2012
ASIN B0073BNIU8
Book Source: Author
4 Stars
Book summary from Goodreads:  Twins Sera and Luke Raine have a well-kept secret—she heals with a touch of her hand, he sees the future. All their lives they’ve helped those in need on the sly. They’ve always thought of their abilities as being a gift.

Then Luke has a vision that Sera is killed. That gift they’ve always cherished begins to feel an awful lot like a curse. Because the thing about Luke’s ability? He’s always right. And he can’t do anything about it.

Crystal’s Review: Being a teenager is hard, but Luke and Sera have it harder than most. They were both born with special abilities, Luke can see visions of the future and Sera can heal people with a touch of her hands. They have spent their entire lives hiding their abilities from everyone, including their parents and their best friend Fey. Unknown to them Fey has a secret of her own. She knows everything their is to know about Luke and Sera and it is her job to protect them. She can sense that the time is coming and soon Luke and Sera will be introduced to a world they never knew existed, a world they play a bigger part in than they could have ever imagined. Intangible includes all the parts needed to make a great story, Love,Danger,and Magic. I must applaud the author for taking the time to really describe all of the people and places in the story. I find that in stories that are face paced, like Intangible, sometimes the author becomes more focused on the exciting parts of the story and they forget to take time to describe the people and places in which the story takes place so that we as readers can better picture the stories in our minds. Intangible is a great book and I look forward to seeing what else this author comes out with in the future.
Content: Descriptive violent scenes throughout the book.

Crystal

Author Bio: Originally from Vermont, I now live in central New York. Intangible is my first novel. When I’m not reading or writing, I’m chasing after my four kids, exploring the outdoors with them, relishing the few quiet moments I get with my husband, baking sweet treats, and forgetting to make dinner.

Freshman Year and Other Unnatural Disasters Blog Tour- Guest Post With Meredith Zeitlin

20 Mar, 2012 by in meredith zeitlin, putnam Leave a comment

Fire and Ice is today’s stop on the blog tour for Freshman Year and Other Unnatural Disasters by Meredith Zeitlin.
She is joining us for an exclusive guest post …SO, WHAT ABOUT MY FRESHMAN YEAR?

“My freshman year was both really hard and ultimately really rewarding. I started at a brand new school that year, which was really nerve-wracking. I missed my friends from middle school and could barely find my way around the place! But I actually ended up loving it – I did make friends, and figure out where to sit at lunch, and got cast in a lead role in the school play, and somehow ended up on the lacrosse team – a sport I’d never even heard of before. (In a related story, I was TERRIBLE at it. But I stuck it out, just like Kelsey does with soccer in the book.)
Of course, this is me as an adult looking back – at the time I know I was incredibly frustrated much of the time. It’s so hard to be new. It took a long time for things to be mostly fun instead of mostly terrifying.
I’ve been asked a lot during this book tour what I’d say to myself if I could go back in time, and the answer is: PLENTY. To be honest, I think Freshman Me would probably roll her eyes and tell Future Me I had no idea what I was talking about – I mean, what would you say to some nosy old person who claimed to know all about you and tried to tell you how to run your life? But I’d give it a shot, anyway.

I’d tell her not to try so hard, and to trust that people will like her even if she isn’t always “on,” or cracking a joke, or proving she’s right about everything. I’d love to explain to her that all the other fourteen-year-olds are just as insecure about themselves as she is. I’d definitely inform her that the guys she agonizes over are not worth her agony, and that she doesn’t have anything to prove.

I’d tell her not to suck up to that junior after the cast list for the fall play goes up. “It backfires!” I’d say. “Someday you’ll be working this moment into a YA book – stay away from her!”
I’d encourage her not to go into Manhattan to stay over at the apartment of a random girl she barely knew from camp. “She turns out to be really weird and live in what is essentially a room filled with garbage!” I’d insist. “This is not going to be the cool adventure you think it’s going to be!”
I’d try really, really hard to talk her out of the darkish-brownish-burgundyish lipstick she insists on wearing. Oh, and I’d suggest she find out something about Kurt Cobain – like, the name of more than one song he sings, for instance? – before she hangs pictures of him all over her locker. (I wouldn’t tell her he dies on her 16th birthday. That would just be mean.)
I’d tell her she’s pretty, even if she doesn’t think so. And that she isn’t fat. And that her parents aren’t ACTUALLY out to destroy her, even if it seems that way.
And the things I’d want to warn her about the next three years after ninth grade? Or college? Well, that list would be too long for this post.
The truth is, there’s a good reason we can’t go back and reveal these things to ourselves – we have to learn the hard way. It’s what makes us the adults we become, I think. And we probably know that truth, even as we’re slogging through the mess of freshman year – even if we don’t realize it til much, much later.
Of course, being able to read a book about anothergirl whose life is a disaster doesn’t hurt. So that’s really why I wrote this one. For fourteen-year-old me… and all the real freshmen who are trying to figure it out right now.”
About the Author: Meredith Zeitlin is a writer and voiceover artist who lives in Brooklyn with two adorable feline roommates. She also writes a column for Ladygunn Magazine, changes her hair color every few months, and has many fancy pairs of spectacles.

“Freshman Year and Other Unnatural Disasters” (Putnam, March 2012) is her first novel.

You can learn more about the book on her website/ twitter/ facebook.

Review- Freshman Year and Other Unnatural Disasters

20 Mar, 2012 by in meredith zeitlin, putnam, YA contemporary 1 comment

Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters
by Meredith Zeitlin
Paperback, 282 pages
Published:  March 1, 2012
by G.P. Putnam’s Son
ISBN 978-0-399-25423-9
Book Source: author
3 stars
Summary from Amazon: Laugh-out-loud funny high school drama – perfect for fans of Lauren Myracle and Meg CabotLet’s say you’re fourteen and live in New York City. You’d
think your life would be like a glamorous TV show, right? And yet . . . You don’t have a checking account, much less a personal Black American Express card.You’ve never been to a club, and the only couture in your closet is a Halloween costume your mom made from an old laundry bag.In other words? You’re Kelsey Finkelstein – fourteen and frustrated. Every time she tries to live up to
her awesome potential, her plans are foiled. Kelsey wants to rebrand herself for
high school to make the kind of mark she knows is her destiny. But just because
Kelsey has a plan for greatness . . . it doesn’t mean the rest of the world is
in on it.Kelsey’s hilarious commentary and sardonic narration of her
freshman year will have readers laughing out loud – while being thankful that
they’re not in her shoes, of course.
Jodi’s Review: Let’s face it, the first year of high school is a challenge, no matter who you are. The main character, Kelsey is ready to face her first year of high school head on. Kelsey has decided to do something this year. Kelsey wants to make a mark, stand out. Kelsey does manage to stand out, but perhaps not in ways she planned. From upsetting a very popular Junior girl the first day of school to a horrible first date, this book is full of laughs. Many teenage girls can relate to the trials and tribulations high school brings. I as a parent however, would want make sure I discussed with my daughter some of the subjects that arise in this book. I recommend this book for ages 14 and up.
Content: Underage drinking, drug use, sex, and homosexuality
Jodi