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Friday, August 29, 2014

What Do You Feel Like Reading Infographic

Here's a great infographic from Random House... what do you feel like reading?



Tuesday, August 26, 2014

A Dozen Books I Don't Have

This week's topic from The Broke and the Bookish is: Top Ten Books I Really Want to Read But Don't Own Yet. I couldn't limit it to just 10 though! Here's my list of a dozen books that I'd like to read, but haven't been able to lay my hands on. I don't feel like I need to own every book I read (that would be pure madness if I did, as I'd soon be drowning in books!) As a librarian, I'm a big library user, and you should be too, of course! So, that increases the number of books that I have ready to hand by quite a fair margin. 

Nonetheless, here are some titles that I haven't been able to get yet... maybe my library doesn't carry them, or perhaps the waiting list is still too long... and it's a little hard to justify going out and buying them when I already have so many other things to read. But I do want to get to these books, so they're staying at the top of my list!


Outpost - Ann Aguirre
Witchlanders - Lena Coakley
Fever - Lauren DeStefano
Wildthorn - Jane Eagland
Vanish - Sophie Jordan
Uninvited - Sophie Jordan
Stolen Nights - Rebecca Maizel
Boneshaker - Cherie Priest
Eleanor and Park - Rainbow Rowell
The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson
The Candidates - Inara Scott
All These Things I've Done - Gabrielle Zevin

Friday, August 22, 2014

Blackfin Sky review

Blackfin Sky
by Kat Ellis
Running Press
September 2014

First line: "Silas's spirit had inhibited the rusted weathervane for many years."

Sixteen year old Skylar Rousseau heads to school one morning to find, much to her shock, that everyone in her small town has believed her to be dead for the past three months. Skylar's memories are different - she remembers an uneventful few months, where life went on as normal. It's a huge adjustment for her friends, family and schoolmates, as no one can explain why this has happened.

Wow! What an amazing start to a story! I was eager to dig in and figure out the dramatic mystery of Skylar's reappearance. The only thing that surprised me, was that the small Southern town of Blackfin is known as a place where "weird things" happen. The weathervane is haunted, a local well magically steals pennies from passersby, the rooms in the school are known to shift and change place without warning, and Skylar has grown up in The Blood House - a house where the walls can either muffle or amplify sound, literally allowing certain people to eavesdrop.

Given that it's a clearly magical world, I was surprised that throughout the book, all of the townsfolk have such difficulty with Skylar's mysterious return. Wouldn't they be used to bizarre magical events like this? The book piles one mystery on top of another, as the suspense grows to nearly unbearable heights. What happened the night that Skylar's memories and the rest of the town diverged? Who is Skylar's biological father? What secrets have her parents been keeping from her? Where is Blackfin exactly? Near New Orleans? Why is Skylar blinking in and out of places? Is she teleporting? Time traveling? Where, and when, is the creepy circus that Skylar keeps teleporting to?

Finally, about midway through the book, a few tantalizing clues are dropped and things gradually begin to fall into place. There's a hint of a love triangle between Skylar, Seth and Jared, with Seth soon taking the lead. Blackfin Sky felt like an enormous clockwork piece, where at the last possible moment, all of the elements, including things one might initially think were throwaways, finally come together.

It's an interesting world, and though everything wraps up neatly by the end, there is plenty of more room to explore.

Compare to:
This Wicked Game - Michelle Zink
Parallel - Lauren Miller
Dissonance - Erica O'Rourke

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Vacation!

Summer Reading is over... and I'm taking a well-earned August vacation. Look for more posts when I return!


Tuesday, August 12, 2014

10 Books I'm not sure of

This week's topic from The Broke and the Bookish is: Top Ten Books I'm Not Sure I Want to Read. Okay - here's my top 10.

Torment (Fallen, #2)



Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles, #2)
Wolves, Boys and Other Things That Might Kill Me
Chains (Seeds of America, #1)
The Looking Glass Wars (The Looking Glass Wars, #1)
Everlost (Skinjacker, #1)
The King's Rose
The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, #1)
Wrapped (Wrapped, #1)
Liar

Torment - I read the first book, and grew a bit weary of the love story. But the cover on the sequel is so good. Should I keep going?

Beautiful Darkness - Again, the beautiful cover keeps me interested. I enjoyed the first book. But do I need to read more?

I added Wolves, Boys and Other Things that Might Kill Me, because I heard it was the perfect thing for Team Jacob Twilight fans. And I had just finished reading Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver which I loved. But then, somehow never got around to reading this one.

Chains - I hear it's good. But also depressing. Hmmm.

The Looking Glass Wars - I hear it's good. But I don't know if I'm in the mood for Alice in Wonderland.

Everlost - I like Neal Shusterman a lot. I started reading this one, but couldn't get into it. Should I try again?

The King's Rose - I added this to my TBR right after I finished watching the Tudors. Do I still want to read it?

The Alchemyst - I thought this would be perfect to fill the Harry Potter sized hole in my heart after the series was finished. But will it be worth it?

Wrapped -  I love Egyptology. I'm not sure if I'll tackle this one though.

Liar - I've heard amazing things about the unreliable narrator. But I don't know if I'll ever pick this one up.

Friday, August 8, 2014

Book shoes

Here are some amazing book-themed shoes.


Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Fragile Eternity review

Fragile Eternity
by Melissa Marr
Harper Collins
April 2009

First line: "Seth knew the moment Aislinn slipped into the house; the slight rise in temperature would've told him even if he hadn't seen the glimmer of sunlight in the middle of the night."

The third book in the Wicked Lovely series returns to Aislinn's perspective as she continues to navigate the intersection of the mortal and faery realms. Having defeated the Winter Queen's curse, she has transformed from awkward high-schooler into the faery Summer Queen, taking her place beside her faery king consort, Keenan. Meanwhile, her all-too-human boyfriend Seth is unfortunately no longer able to bear her burning touch. Keenan faces a similar problem with his former lover, the Winter Girl, Donia, who has now taken the deposed Winter Queen's place.

In truth, I found Aislinn so very changed by all she had experienced in Wicked Lovely, at times I almost forgot that she was the same character. Gone is the shy, fearful girl with second sight. This new Aislinn might be somewhat new to her role as the Summer Queen, but that doesn't stop her from being outspoken and attempting to bully her new faery subjects into submission.

Plenty of political machinations follow, with the Summer and Winter Courts now in accord, and Winter's influence ebbing, the Dark Court (featured in Ink Exchange) is in trouble. Bananach, a faery patron of War, has long affiliated herself with the Dark Court, but sensing trouble, she goes to her sister, Sorcha, the Queen of the High Court to make threats.

With Keenan's and Aislinn's attraction growing as the summer season waxes, frustrated Seth decides the only solution is to become a faery himself. Hoping to sow further strife, Bananach brings him before the reclusive High Queen, who agrees to grant him immortality, as long as he agrees to spend part of the year with her. Much to my surprise, the two of them develop a mother-son relationship, with Sorcha feeling fiercely protective of Seth. What she fails to tell him is that a few days in her realm equal months on the mortal plane. When Seth finally returns to Aislinn, he is mortified to discover that nearly half a year, she's finally given up on him, and has begun to settle down with Keenan.

Readers should definitely start at the beginning of the series, with Wicked Lovely. This book, the middle of the quintet, shares many characteristics typical of a second book in a trilogy; a complex backstory which requires coming to the book with a firm foundation in the world that Marr has built, a complicated web of romance and intrigue with less plot advancement, and a cliffhanger ending which leaves much unresolved. Fans of urban fantasy will find this alternate take on immortality interesting.


I borrowed this book from the library.

Friday, August 1, 2014

Read in July 2014


Last month I read the following the books:

1. Enchanted - Alethea Kontis

2. Double Double - Martha Grimes
3. Good is Not Enough - Keith R. Wyche
4. We Were Liars - E. Lockhart
5. Orange is the New Black - Piper Kerman
6. The Burning Sky - Sherry Thomas
7. My Real Children - Jo Walton
8. Small Apartments - Alejandro Bahamon
9. Akata Witch - Nnedi Okorafor
10. Do You See What I See? - Janice Fenn
11. Bitter Melon - Cara Chow
12. Diary of a Wimpy Kid #8: Hard Luck - Jeff Kinney
13. Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell

Picture credit: A Favorite Book - Richard S. Johnson

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