Teaser Tuesday

This week's Tease . . . 

Charming

Elliott James

Orbit Books

Releases 9.24.2013

Blub from the Publisher:

John Charming isn't your average Prince... 
He comes from a line of Charmings — an illustrious family of dragon slayers, witch-finders and killers dating back to before the fall of Rome. Trained by a modern day version of the Knights Templar, monster hunters who have updated their methods from chainmail and crossbows to kevlar and shotguns, he was one of the best. That is — until he became the abomination the Knights were sworn to hunt.
That was a lifetime ago. Now, he tends bar under an assumed name in rural Virginia and leads a peaceful, quiet life. One that shouldn't change just because a vampire and a blonde walked into his bar... Right?

Tease Time: aka revealing 5 Chapter Titles

Chapter:

1. A Blonde and a Vampire Walk into a Bar
2. If Shoving You is Wrong, I Don't Want To Do Right
3. Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Deprogramming
4. Which One Of You Ordered The Stake?
5. The Norse Whisperer


Seriously the book and the Chapter Titles just keep getting better as the book progresses. Elliott James weaves a heroic UF with style in Charming. Basically what the story somewhat boils down to is expectations; what we have of ourselves and what others want to see for us. John Charming is at the end of the leash and dangling over a precipice, so readers move through a story that can have a bitter end or an epic beginning.

*received a copy of this book through edelweiss and the publishers on the amazing internet.  An honest review was typed out by me with at least three cups of coffee in my system and I hope all errors were auto-corrected or fixed by flying monkeys in residence.

ARC SPOT: Weather Witch

Weather Witch 
Shannon Delany
St. Martin's Griffin
Releases 6.25.2013
ISBN: 9871250018519

Blurb from the Publisher:

In a vastly different and darker Philadelphia of 1844, steam power has been repressed, war threatens from deep, dark waters, and one young lady of high social standing is expecting a surprise at her seventeenth birthday party–but certainly not the one she gets!

Jordan Astraea, who has lived out all of her life in Philadelphia’s most exclusive neighborhood, is preparing to celebrate her birthday with friends, family and all the extravagance they might muster. The young man who is most often her dashing companion, Rowen Burchette, has told her a surprise awaits her and her best friend, Catrina Hollindale, wouldn’t miss this night for all the world!

But storm clouds are gathering and threatening to do far more than dampen her party plans because someone in the Astraea household has committed the greatest of social sins by Harboring a Weather Witch.

Our Thoughts On:

                Shannon Delany is one of those authors that I feel is like a wave, the beginning of her series begin soft and slightly slow (do not be discouraged!), but with the description of the storyline building, cresting you are blow away within a third of her books. Weather Witch begins with a background; opening up into the budding of a young woman, but also a terrible curse across the land in the form of witches. Like a stain, any family found harboring a Witch, or ceasing to know of them even was a witch, means social upheaval and basically an outcast predicament. Many noble families high up in their society’s value of number casting has been torn asunder and ripped from their elegance with the emergence of a Witch child.

                In the world of the Weather Witch Shannon Delany has woven a heartbreaking tale of magic and ignorance ripe in an age of elegance and station. With a main character who is condemned due to an emergence of power on her 17^th birthday, to a lie and betrayal, Delany weaves this YA title through beauty and benevolence. Witches are broken and then Made into a power force that all families and people of their world, somewhat like electricity. With this power, many people of stature and value in society believe that the Witches are taken care of and hare happy to serve their country, but that is dark and far from the truth.

                In fact, Holgate, Pennyslvania holds the terrible price for the value of the commodities that the Witches produce, it holds the place where the Witches of power are Made and harnessed. Weather Witch begins with Holgate’s tallest tower, and the only Witch to escape it. Marion Kruse has had a terrible past and his future is ripe with vengeance, but when this crosses paths with newly found Jordan Astraea a whole new series from Shannon Delany is born. Jordan Kruse is turning 17, far past an age where normal Witches are found, and at her party there is nothing Jordan fears more than a marriage promise from her longtime friend. What Jordan discovers is that there is Witch power in the air, although she is certain that it is not found within her, and that finding the truth will be more painful than she ever imagined.

                With mystery, intrigue and filled with desperation and discovery Weather Witch will captivate readers into the plight of a young woman at the age of discovering, but finding out that the truth is a hard stone cast. With a strong and willful male role in Rowen Burchette, a supporting character reader’s will follow a romance but also a growth in a boy finding strength within himself to right wrongs and save the girl he loves from certain doom.  The Maker of Witches, Bran Marshall develops into a terrible but tortured character who has a twist at the end which will keep readers entranced even while they cringe, but Delany effortlessly fills out the role of tortured and torturer.

                Get ready for a whole new reality filled with pain and suffering for a little magic to light your way. This series is truly not to be missed with the upcoming YA releasse of 2013 and Weather Witch will capture readers while leaving us all wanting more from author Shannon Delany and her captivating characters.

Monday Reads

Book In Hand:

Charming         by Elliott James


What We Read:

The Moon and More    Sarah Dessen
Unbreakable                 Elizabeth Scott


Hitting The Bookstore For:

Star Cursed    by Jessica Spotswood

Participating In:

The Sizzling Summer Book Club from Smart Bitches Trashy Books

This month's pick was:

Any Duchess Will Do
Tessa Dare
Releasead 5.2013

Chat June 27th @6:00 PST

Review: The Rules

The Rules
Project Paper Doll #1
Stacey Kade
Disney Hyperion
4.23.2013

Blurb from the Publisher:

Five simple rules. Ariane Tucker has followed them since the night she escaped from the genetics lab where she was created, the result of combining human and extraterrestrial DNA. Ariane’s survival—and that of her adoptive father—depends on her ability to blend in among the full-blooded humans in a small Wisconsin town, to hide in plain sight at her high school from those who seek to recover their lost (and expensive) “project.”
But when a cruel prank at school goes awry, it puts her in the path of Zane Bradshaw, the police chief’s son and someone who sees too much. Someone who really sees her. After years of trying to be invisible, Ariane finds the attention frightening—and utterly intoxicating. Suddenly, nothing is simple anymore, especially not the rules.

Our Thoughts On:

                The Rules are simple, there are only 5, and sometimes it is the very last Rule that will destroy them all.

 1. Never trust anyone.

2. Remember they are always searching.

3. Don’t get involved.

4. Keep your head down.

5. Don’t fall in love.

                Ariane Tucker’s name has a past that haunts her constantly. This name has a history that is catching up with her present, and carrying a dead girl’s name is like a ticking time bomb when the truth comes out. There is a giant corporation in Ariane’s town, one that she knows about all too well. In fact GTX is Ariane’s, this Arianes, birthplace, although it was also her prison. Ariane has a dangerous secret, one that she has been hiding from for over 10 years; that she is not quite human. In fact her parentage can be said to be, well, extraterrestrial in lineage somewhere, but Ariane could not say for herself, since she has never met any other hybrids.

                Imaginations could not even bring out the horrors that Ariane has seen while being in the constraints of her former captivity in GTX and keeping out of their radar has been a struggle these past years. Ariane has been steadfast in keeping under the radar, in being mediocre so that she does not gain attention from school, friends, or other people. Keeping herself along the Rules has been paramount in her survival and in her hiding, but Ariane soon finds that there are some things worth fighting for in life.

                Running from betrayal and fighting to save her friends is keeping Ariane in the GTX spotlight, but the hardest thing she soon finds that she has to overcome is to be ensnared by someone closest to you. The Rules will grip readers  in layers of treachery and hidden agendas steeped in romance and internal turmoil. Ariane Tucker’s dilemma will reel readers in as she struggles to survive against all odds, while also she yearns for the basic of things safety and freedom. Her freedom to life and decision, something that she has kept from herself as she struggled to keep out of notice and keep alive and Ariane has something that she wants to live for now more than ever. With a romance that begins from a lie, Ariane’s relationships and history with entrench readers into an amazing story that keeps powerful all the way to the last page.

                The Paper Doll Project is as deceiving and dangerous as it sounds and this series is off to a breathtaking start filled with Rules that are at some point, meant to be broken if one truly wants to live.

Review: Some Quiet Place

Some Quiet Place
Kelsey Sutton
Flux Books
Released 6.8.2013

Blurb from the Publisher:

Elizabeth Caldwell doesn’t feel emotions . . . she sees them. Longing, Shame, and Courage materialize around her classmates. Fury and Resentment appear in her dysfunctional home. They’ve all given up on Elizabeth because she doesn’t succumb to their touch. All, that is, save one—Fear. He’s intrigued by her, as desperate to understand the accident that changed Elizabeth’s life as she is herself.
Elizabeth and Fear both sense that the key to her past is hidden in the dream paintings she hides in the family barn. But a shadowy menace has begun to stalk her, and try as she might, Elizabeth can barely avoid the brutality of her life long enough to uncover the truth about herself. When it matters most, will she be able to rely on Fear to save her?

Our Thoughts On:

            We all need some quiet space to collect our thoughts, but what if that space is filled with emotions. Every day you are faced with Elements and Emotions and not as words or feelings, but as actually represented beings. Elizabeth is haunted by things no one else sees, she is steeped in secrets and wrapped in a past she cannot remember. Elizabeth has no emotions of her own, she is like a blank slate wiped of past and present, not really here but still something other than herself. Others are uncomfortable about this girl who does not express herself or show her own emotions as other people do. This unfeeling presence brings others to judge Elizabeth harshly and blatantly ignore her or harass her, to the point where danger lurks.

            What catches attention for readers in Some Quiet Place is in its originality. There is a depth to Elizabeth and the entities around her. Struggling in an abusive home, and left out of the majority of her life, Elizabeth’s heroine portrayal arcs as she finds out something that has eluded her all of her life; what happened during an accident while she was a child. As the story builds in intensity readers will sympathize with Elizabeth but also in the Elements interacting with her, and the humans, but especially the Element Fear. Author Kelsey Sutton has redefined the wandering mind, because what happens when something sees something no one else can perceive as these things interact with people in our world.

            Filled with dynamic relationships in character interactions, Some Quiet Place with grip readers and keep them hooked until the very last page. With twists and turns, intricate romance, and retribution, Some Quiet Place is a book this year not to be missed.

Friday Reads

This Friday's Book In Hand:

Unbreakable
Legion #1
Kami Garcia
Releases 10.1.2013
Little Brown Books

Blurb from the Publisher:

When Kennedy Waters finds her mother dead, her world begins to unravel. She doesn’t know that paranormal forces in a much darker world are the ones pulling the strings. Not until identical twins Jared and Lukas Lockhart break into Kennedy’s room and destroy a dangerous spirit sent to kill her. The brothers reveal that her mother was part of an ancient secret society responsible for protecting the world from a vengeful demon — a society whose five members were all murdered on the same night.
Now Kennedy has to take her mother’s place in the Legion if she wants to uncover the truth and stay alive. Along with new Legion members Priest and Alara, the teens race to find the only weapon that might be able to destroy the demon — battling the deadly spirits he controls every step of the way.

Review: Towering

Towering
Alex Flinn
Harper Teen
5.14.2013


Alex Flinn is a master storyteller. Twisting classics like no one else, there is a new Repunzel in town with the release of Towering and with a series of twists and turns readers will be taken into a whole new classic adventure with a modern twist.

Blurb from the Publisher:

Rachel is trapped in a tower, held hostage by a woman she’s always called Mama. Her golden hair is growing rapidly, and to pass the time, she watches the snow fall and sings songs from her childhood, hoping someone, anyone, will hear her. 
Wyatt needs time to reflect or, better yet, forget about what happened to his best friend, Tyler. That’s why he’s been shipped off to the Adirondacks in the dead of winter to live with the oldest lady in town. Either that, or no one he knows ever wants to see him again.
Dani disappeared seventeen years ago without a trace, but she left behind a journal that’s never been read, not even by her overbearing mother…until now. 

Our Thoughts On:

In a cave below a fire racked building, workers whispered of a Prophecy . . . wait, wait! We are not there yet.

One cold December, Emily Hill sent her son Wyatt to live with an old friend named Anne Greenwood. The locals had stories of old Mad Greenwood, a woman wracked with grief after her daughter’s disappearance when she was seventeen. Wyatt may soon find himself deep in an old story that has been haunting his family and this community for the past eighteen years.

Rachel is the girl in the tower. Rapunzel takes a whole new twist in Towering, full of secrets and shadows this book will catch and captivate readers in a tale of love and betrayal. Young love is not always what it seems when Rachel begins to dream of a boy, then she begins to have premonitions about him, soon turning into hearing him in her tower. But really, Rachel is in a tower, she is not hiding any boys in there anytime soon so what is Rachel experiencing? With pale skin and flowing golden hair as a child, Rachel didn’t understand why she was secluded at home, but after a run in with another child and her mother cutting her hair, Rachel was whisked off to her tower; sheltered from all, secluded. Was the tower her prison, or was it possibly her protection?

Wyatt is a hero. Once he begins to see the ghost of Danielle Greenwood, Wyatt discovers there is truly something sinister going on around these parts. With daring exploits and a quest for uncovering the truth of the disappearance of Danielle Greenwood and how this is connected to Rachel is the foundation of the story.
            Swept into a romance and mystery readers will fall for Towering, a new twisted modern fairytale. Towering pushes past the helpless maiden and brings forth a sheltered girl who has passion and drive. With a romantic twist and a cold case, Towering will captivate with this dynamic pair of characters who are selfless and motivated.

Alex Flinn has efficiently rewritten the class Rapunzel into a while new heroine with an earnest dream to find more in her world. With an inventive plot and a sinister evil twist of an underground drug ring and missing local persons’ cases, this book will assimilate many types of readers into a daring fantast that wraps up in our present time. Previous readers of Flinn’s adaptations will enjoy this new plot thickening with the loathsome bad guys, but also be caught up in the ferocious passions of Wyatt and Rachel. Get ready for adventure in Alex Flinn’s latest, Towering.