Genre: Contemporary

Early Book Breview~ Royally Lost by Angie Stanton

01 Apr, 2014 by in HarperCollins, new adult, royally lost 2 comments

I received this book for free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Early Book Breview~ Royally Lost by Angie Stanton

Royally Lost

by Angie Stanton
Published by HarperCollins on May 6th 2014
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult
Pages: 336
Format: eARC
three-stars
Source: Edelweiss
Buy the BookGoodreads
What would it be like to fall in love with a prince?

Dragged on a family trip to Europe's ancient cities, Becca wants nothing more than to go home. Trapped with her emotionally distant father, overeager stepmother, and a brother who only wants to hook up with European hotties, Becca is miserable. That is, until she meets Nikolai, a guy as mysterious as he is handsome. And she unknowingly finds herself with a runaway prince.

Nikolai has everything a guy could ask for—he's a crown prince, heir to the throne, and girls adore him. But the one thing he doesn't have . . . is freedom. After staging a revolt, he flees his kingdom and goes undercover on his own European tour.

When Nikolai and Becca meet, it's their differences that draw them together. Sparks fly as they share a whirlwind of adventures, all the while dodging his royal guard. But Becca's family vacation ends in a matter of days. Will Nikolai and Becca be forced to say good-bye when his destiny catches up to him, or will they change history forever?

If you’re looking for a a light, fluffy summer book that can be read quickly, Royally Lost is a great pick. It’s the story of one family on vacation in Europe trying to “bond”, and a runaway prince from Moldovia who isn’t quite ready to claim the throne.  Becca and her brother Dylan have had it with their workaholic father and the recorded tours on the stops of their cruise. They are ready to break off on their own and explore all that Europe has to offer. Nikolai spots Becca, a gorgeous American girl by chance and the two keep running into each other. Can he convince her to stow away with him?

It’s a case of instant crush turned love for Becca and Nikolai. While dodging papperazzi and trying to fend off security from Nioklai’s country, these two love birds are in for an adventure. Meanwhile there are new adult themes of choosing a college and career, breaking the ties with mom and dad, loyalty to siblings and choosing one’s one path. There’s also the side plot of trying to form a relationship with a new step mother after the loss of a mom. Overall, this wasn’t overly deep or moving. It’s an easy read, and I wish the characters would have dug deeper into exploring and taking their rich setting…Costa Rica, Budapest. There are so  many thing to see along their path! I wasn’t super attached, as I felt things could have been fleshed out a little more, but I did enjoy Royally Lost.  Overall, a fun new “close to clean” addition to the New Adult genre.

Content: (highlight to reveal) mention of skinny dipping, swimming in underwear, drinking, lying to parents, moderate swearing

heather

About the AuthorAngies-Professional-Head-Shots-003-e1378407382251

Angie Stanton never planned on writing books—she wanted to be a Rockette. However, growing up in rural America with her brothers’ 4-H pigs as pets, she found that dance didn’t quite work out. Instead, she became an avid daydreamer. After years of perfecting stories in her head, she began to write them down, and the rest is history. When not writing, she loves watching natural disaster movies, going to Broadway musicals, and dipping French fries in chocolate shakes. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

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Paris Cravings Cover Reveal, Review and Giveaway

01 Feb, 2014 by in Cover Reveal-, paris, YA contemporary 1 comment

I received this book for free from Elana Johnson in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Paris Cravings Cover Reveal, Review and Giveaway

Paris Cravings

by Kimberley Montpetit
Published by Spellbound Books on February 1, 2014
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Pages: 205
Format: eARC
four-stars
Source: Elana Johnson
Buy the BookGoodreads
Can life really turn on a dime,
a missed bus—
or a stuck pastry shop door?

Chloe Dillard’s life has always been complicated. Her mother is a neurotic romance novelist and her boyfriend, Mathew, has been pressuring her to go “all the way”—even as one of her own best friends offers to accommodate him.

But after The Worst Night of Her Life, Chloe escapes on her Senior Class trip to the swoon-worthy city of Paris which takes her mind off her troubles—temporarily. On the final leg of her dream trip, Chloe squeezes in one final run for a last-minute box of decadent pastries. Add a stuck door, subtract a broken four-inch heel from her cute strappy sandals, and Chloe ends up one stuck girl on the bakery shop floor with a sprained ankle.

Rescued by the shop owner’s dreamy son with chocolate-syrup eyes, the beautiful city of Paris suddenly becomes Chloe’s personal secret adventure. And even though Jean-Paul, the oh-so-kind La Patisserie shop boy is the gentlemanly guy Chloe has always dreamed of, even he has a girlfriend.

The police are tracking her down as a run-away, Mom’s having a nervous breakdown over her daughter’s “disappearance”, and Chloe’s just trying to have a Happily-Ever-After even as her dreams with Matt are swirling down the drain.

Could being lost in the city of Paris be just what the doctor ordered? What’s a girl to do in the most romantic city in the world?

Who can resist a book set in Paris amidst a Patisserie shop full of eclairs and pastries?! I’m excited this is a series, because anything with a bakery involved and I am in! Paris Carvings started out with a girl, a big box, some high heels and a mishap with a door. Insert cute worker with Hershey brown eyes, a French accent and a missing passport and you have the beginnings of romance.

Chloe is about to leave her summer student exchange program in Paris when a mishap leaves her stranded and covered in whipped cream. But once she discovers just how nice the locals can be she doesn’t ever want to leave! The trick is evading her tour group’s hired henchman and her nervous mother while touring the dreamy Paris sites with her new- found “friend.”

This is a feel good contemporary with a fun setting. There is a secondary story line of how Chloe deals with her boyfriend back home, written in flashback chapters of their relationship past to present. These were my least favorite parts of the novel as her BF is such a jerk! Red flags flying everywhere! But, overall this is a fun diversion. You can smell, taste and fell the warmth of a Paris bakery. Take me away to France please!

Content: (highlight to reveal)  Definitely a read for older teens as there is much discussion of sex, innuendo and avoiding peer pressure. There is a hinting at coercion and sensuality. I was a bit distracted also by the taking of the Lord’s name in vain which I don’t like to read.

 

heather

 

About The AuthorKimberley_Montpetit

Kimberley Montpetit once spent all her souvenir money at the La Patisserie shops when she was in Paris—on the arm of her adorable husband. The author grew up in San Francisco, another swoon-worthy city, loves all things Parisian and chocolate and lives in a small town along the Rio Grande with her family.

Kimberley has won many awards for her work, including the Southwest Book Award, the Whitney Award, the Arizona/New Mexico Book Award, is a Crystal Kite Finalist (SCBWI) and included in the Bank Street College Best Books of the Year.

She once stayed in a haunted castle tower room at Borthwick Castle in Scotland, sailed on the Seine in Paris, walked the beaches of Normandy, eaten in numerous French cafes, ridden a camel in Petra, Jordan, sunbathed on Waikiki, shopped the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, and spent the night in an old Communist hotel in Bulgaria.

She adores all baked goodies; brownies, éclairs, donuts, tarts, and pie, and makes a lot of chocolate chip cookies while revising. Kimberley is, of course, hard at work on her next novel(s).

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ARC Review: Second Star by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

20 Jan, 2014 by in alyssa b sheinmel, ARC, Farrar Straus Giroux, macmillan, peter pan, reimagining, summer 2 comments

I received this book for free from Farrar Straus Giroux in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

ARC Review: Second Star by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

Second Star

by Alyssa B. Sheinmel
Published by Farrar Straus Giroux on May 13th 2014
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Pages: 256
Format: ARC
five-stars
Source: Farrar Straus Giroux
Buy the BookGoodreads
A twisty story about love, loss, and lies, this contemporary oceanside adventure is tinged with a touch of dark magic as it follows seventeen-year-old Wendy Darling on a search for her missing surfer brothers. Wendy’s journey leads her to a mysterious hidden cove inhabited by a tribe of young renegade surfers, most of them runaways like her brothers. Wendy is instantly drawn to the cove’s charismatic leader, Pete, but her search also points her toward Pete's nemesis, the drug-dealing Jas. Enigmatic, dangerous, and handsome, Jas pulls Wendy in even as she's falling hard for Pete. A radical reinvention of a classic, Second Star is an irresistible summer romance about two young men who have yet to grow up--and the troubled beauty trapped between them.

Wow. Where to even begin with this book?!! I sat down to read it, and never got up. Read straight past my bed time, into the night, until turning the very last page. For me, the writing was absolutely enchanting and dreamlike–a fairy tale shimmering to life in a modern day retelling by the beach. By far, the most magical book I’ve read in a very long time.

Wendy Darling’s world is shattered when her twin brothers go missing after going surfing and then never come back. Her parents are shells of themselves, merely passing through the motions of life. Wendy, in the mean time, is convinced her brothers are still out there somewhere.

She’s a straight A student– Stanford bound in fact,  but Wendy feels the tug of the ocean, the whispers of her brothers.

A chance meeting with a beautiful boy named Pete leads her to Kensington. Once the home of millionaires, now an abandoned neighborhood clinging dangerously close to the edge of a cliff backed up to the ocean. Wendy is sure her brothers could have known this very spot where the perfect waves crash in and the tide washes away the path that leads back home. She is inexplicably drawn to the salty air and fire-lit nights.

Second Star brought me back to my senior year in California and the summers in between. Taking weekends at lazy beach towns, finding warm sand between my toes and then shaking it all out again to head back to school, the sunny days and carefree atmosphere.

Pete is perfect. He’s exactly what you would imagine a modern day Peter Pan to be. Belle, his moody, angry girlfriend has secrets of her own. The other lost boys,  Hughie and Matt come together to form their own makeshift family. But, there is a very real threat living on the other side of the beach.

Jas.

He can hook you with his lies, his dust and his enigmatic pull. The love triangle all happens so fast you won’t know what hit.

Wendy finds herself doing things she would never normally do, and second guessing her mind as she chases the second star in search of the truth. Lines between reality and dream becomes blurred (as often happens with trauma, love and loss),  so much so that even the reader is not sure what is fact and what is imagining.

I’m guessing this is a standalone, because of the ending. I don’t want to spoil anything for readers. But suffice it to say, Second Star is a twisty, turvy ride that will suck you in, pull you under and spit you back out wanting another wave. It takes everything you think you know and shakes it up– but for me it was perfect.

Highly recommend Second Star. If you are looking for it to stick to your pre-conceived notions about the well known childhood story of Peter Pan, you may be disappointed– but if you want  amazing writing, here you’ll find fast paced story spinning at its best. Thanks so much to Ksenia at MacMillan Teen Books for sending me this treasure!

My advice… head over to NetGalley and request it. Preorder and add Second Star to your wishlist NOW.

Content: Due to this being such an early review I  won’t list specifics yet. There are several elements of mature content but not in so much detail that it was bothersome to me, will release the parental warnings after the book is published.

heather

Excerpt

Sitting as far from Jas as possible, my body pressed against the passenger- side door, I close my eyes and let a memory wash over me–a memory, I’m certain this time, not a dream: Pete’s chin resting on the small of my back as we paddle out to take a wave. The board sticky with wax beneath me as I pull myself to stand. The ocean dropping out below us as the board slides into place beneath the crest of the wave. And  the sensation that I’m flying, weightless and carefree,with no one on the planet except Pete and me, no one else know exactly what this feels like.

Author Bioalyssa_b_sheinmel

I was born in Stanford, California, and even though I moved across the country to New York when I was six years old, I still think of myself as a California girl.

When I was little, I pretended that I didn’t like to read, because my sister loved to read, and I wanted to be different. (I also pretended that I didn’t like pizza, because it was her favorite food, I still get sad when I think of all the delicious pizza dinners I missed out on.) By the time I was eight, it was too hard to pretend I didn’t like to read, because the truth was that reading was my favorite thing in the world. I loved it so much that when there was nothing to read, I wrote my own stories just to give myself something to read. And when there was no pen and paper to be had, I made up stories and acted them out by myself. I played all the parts, and I was never bored.

When I was eleven years old, I began going to a school in Manhattan called Spence. The teachers there were very supportive of my reading and writing. One teacher there encouraged me to read F. Scott Fitzgerald, and another introduced me to magical realism, and another tried to convince me that there was more to Ernest Hemingway than lessons in fly fishing. (She was right, of course.) And still another let me write a sequel to one of my favorite novels and call it a school project, even though I would have done in my spare time just for the fun of it.

After Spence, I went across town to Barnard College. Once again, I had some of the best teachers in the world encouraging me to write, and introducing me to new authors. One of my very favorite teachers told me to read Joan Didion (and I didn’t thank him enough for that), and my other favorite insisted that there was nothing more to Ernest Hemingway than lessons in fly fishing (and I argued with her a lot about that).

After college, I got a job working in an office where I wore high heels and blazers and even the occasional stiff-collared blouse. I thought I would write on the side, but after a while,I stopped writing altogether – for over a year, I didn’t write a word except in my journal, a very strange thing for a girl who wrote stories from pretty much the time that she learned how to hold a pen.

But then, when I was 24, I began working at a new job, and the people there introduced me to great new writers, just like the teachers I’d had in school. I began to miss writing. It was boring when I wasn’t making up stories to keep myself entertained. And so – slowly, just for the fun of it – I began writing again, and in a couple years I had written the story that would become The Beautiful Between.

I still don’t write every day; sometimes I get caught up in other things, and sometimes I’d just rather park myself in front of the TV and watch reruns of The West Wing. But I always find my way back to my computer; I always remember just how much fun writing really is. And the great thing about writing – at least in my experience – is that it comes out best when you’re doing it for the very, very fun of it.

Find Alyssa on her website*twitter*

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