2010 October | Pages of Forbidden Love

Wings

October 27, 2010 By Alexa Leave a Comment

Title: Wings
Author: Aprilynne Pike
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: Paperback Release: April 2010
Classification: YA Book

Summary from Barnes and Noble:
Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful—too beautiful for words.
Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.
In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.

My Thoughts: I was very skeptic about this book to start with because I was sure that it was going to be too young for me. After meeting Aprilynne at a few book signings I decided to give the first book in her series a shot. I will say the first 50 pages of this book were very uninteresting to me. I kept thinking ok when are we acutally going to get somewhere with this story.
I kept with the storyline though hoping it would get better, I eventually hit that point, although it did take a little while. I started to slowly like the story around the time Laurel becomes friends with David from school and when she meets her faerie guardian/friend Tamani. I have never read a faerie book before so I was interested in this new idea. I think this was a little off the beaten path because the faeries grow flowers and they reproducce from the male faerie making pollen. It was a very interesting and new concept.
At the end I rather enjoyed these little secrets we learned about the faerie world. I am very interested to see what Pike has instore for the second book Spells, the third book, Illusions, will be coming out next year.

Overall: 4 Stars.

Filed Under: Young Adult (YA) Review

Ruthless and Reckless

October 25, 2010 By Alexa Leave a Comment

Title: Ruthless
Author: Anne Stuart
Publisher: Mira
Publication Date: August 2010
Classification: Adult Romance Book

Summary from Barnes and Noble:
Few outsiders will ever witness the dark misdeeds of the Heavenly Host. And among this secret society, where exiled Georgian aristocrats gather to indulge their carnal desires, fewer still can match the insatiable appetite of their chief provocateur, the mysterious Viscount Rohan.
Pursuit of physical pleasure is both his preferred pastime and his most pressing urge, until he encounters the fascination of a woman who won’t be swayed. And while his dark seduction appalls the pure and impoverished Elinor Harriman, she finds herself intrigued…and secretly drawn to the man behind the desire.

My Thoughts:
I have never read an Anne Stuart book before reading this book. I was a little skeptic before I started because it seemed many people had very mixed reviews on this book. By 100 pages in I was already hooked and was already considering Anne Stuart to be a must read author for me.
The storyline was that great mix of historical romance with a very strong cast of characters. I fell for the main characters as well as the secondary ones. I love when there is a strong female leading character that it seems always really needs to be won over by our rake. For some reason that storyline never seems to get old for me so this was an enjoying read.
The love how Anne Stuart really made me connect with the characters and gave them all great backgrounds. My only complaint was that the “steam” of the romance fell flat in this book. I think there was only one scene where there was one of those classic passionate romance scenes. I also felt that the ending was wrapped up a little quickly in the end. There was this drama that happened 50ish pages before the end and then all of a sudden everything was wrapped in a neat little bow. I felt there should have been a little more of an ending between the main couple of this book.

Overall: 4.5 Stars

Title: Reckless
Author: Anne Stuart
Publisher: Mira
Publication Date: September 2010
Classification: Adult Romance Book

Summary from Barnes and Noble:
Adrian Alistair Rohan lost his faith, and now, a dedicated member of the depraved Heavenly Host, he loses himself in his only pleasure: the seduction and debauchery of beautiful women. Rich, charming and devastatingly skilled in the arts of love, he never fails in his conquests…until Charlotte Spenser.
Charlotte is facing a desolate, passionless future, none of which matters to Adrian, who imagines her a toy until better prey arrives. But beneath her drab exterior, Charlotte is a woman as enchanting as she is brilliant and, lured into Adrian’s world, soon she becomes the seducer, and he the seduced….

My Thoughts:
I was so happy when I won this book from Goodreads from Mira Publishing. I couldn’t wait to dive back into the world that was created in Ruthless. In this second book in the series we get a look at Adrian which is the son of the main couple from Ruthless. I liked how we got to see what happened with the family, I always hate for a good story to end so here is a nice continuation.
I didn’t get into this book as quickly as I did with Ruthless and I can’t really say why that is. In Reckless we get to see even more of the Heavenly Host with a new set of great characters. Once again we get to see the romance develop between the main characters and the secondary ones. Sadly to say with this book I actually found the secondary characters romance to be more interesting than the main characters.
Adrian was another great handsome rake and Charlotte is another great strong woman but for some reason they kept going back and forth with each other. Oh I care for you and want to be with you, and later on they were ignoring each other. This is ok when it happens once or so but when it happens multiple times in the storyline I get a little bored. I know that it is more like real life that way but even real life relationships don’t go between hate and love every other week. I felt the secondary characters romance was cute and romantic because of the light banter between them.
I have to give this book credit for having more passion and more romantic “scenes”. But when you find the secondary characters to be better than the main ones there is a little something wrong with that in my opinion.

Overall: 4 Stars

I am looking forward to the third book in this series that recently came out this month.

Filed Under: Adult Review

In My Mailbox (7)

October 24, 2010 By Alexa Leave a Comment

This is a great weekly theme hosted by The Story Siren.

So I’m sorry that I haven’t been posting much except for IMM posts for the past twoish weeks. I have been reading a lot of stuff but I keep glossing over posting reviews for those books. I hope to get caught up in this following week.

So this week I went out and bought Assholes Finish First by Tucker Max. I got this for a friend of mine who now lives in a different state. He was into his other book and his movie so I went to get this for him. I also got to meet Tucker Max at a signing here in AZ a few days ago. My goodness there was a ton and I do me a ton of people there to meet Tucker. Who knew that assholes could be so popular (btw I’m kidding). Tucker has a very loud, look at me personality, he is very funny and if you do get a chance to meet him I would go. He will keep you laughing as he is talking and most of the stories in his two books are pretty interesting. Trust me if you want your guy to read this is the author that you should give him, because I have never seen that many guys in a bookstore before.

A few weeks ago I signed up for another First Look from Barnes and Noble’s message boards. I got confirmed and this week I recieved the book. It is called Vixen and it is scheduled to release in December of this year. It is about the 1920s so I’m interested to see how I like this story.

Filed Under: In My Mailbox (IMM)

In My Mailbox (6)

October 17, 2010 By Alexa Leave a Comment

This is a weekly theme hosted over at The Story Siren.

So this week I am making up for two weeks worth of stuff because I didn’t get around to my posting last week so here we go.
Last Week:

Bought:
~Montana Legacy by R. C. Ryan

Won:
~Mind Games from The Spinecracker blog and it was sent from Carolyn Crane. Thank you Carolyn for sending me a signed copy!
~Montana Destiny, Welcome to Harmony, Knight of Passion, Desire Me, Marrying for King’s Millions, A McKaslin Homecoming, and Her Best Friend from DK’s Everything Romance Books blog. Thank you so much DK for that awesome Blogfest giveaway!
~Lock and Key from J. L. Jackson blog so thank you so much for sending me a copy of that.

This Week:

Bought:
~Not Shown: Spells by Aprilynn Pike

Won:
~ Last to Die from Book Hounds blog. So thank you Mary for the giveaway!
~Seduced by a Highlander from Paranormal and Romantic Suspense Reviews blog. Thanks for the great giveaway!
~ Hot Finish and Personal Research (not shown because it’s an ebook) from Fiction Vixen blog. Thanks for the contests! Big thanks to authors Erin McCarthy for the signed copy of Hot Finish and to Cari Quinn for sending the ebook copy by way!

I would like to say one last big thank you to all the blogs I won books from recently. My shelves are growing because of all of you out there reading and supporting books! Another thanks to all the authors who gave me signed copies from the giveaways!

I hope everyone has had a good weekend. What did you get in your mailbox?

Filed Under: In My Mailbox (IMM)

Crescendo

October 10, 2010 By Alexa Leave a Comment

Title: Crescendo
Author: Becca Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing
Publication Date: October 2010
Classification: YA Book

Summary from Barnes and Noble:
Nora should have know her life was far from perfect. Despite starting a relationship with her guardian angel, Patch (who, title aside, can be described anything but angelic), and surviving an attempt on her life, things are not looking up. Patch is starting to pull away and Nora can’t figure out if it’s for her best interest or if his interest has shifted to her arch-enemy Marcie Millar. Not to mention that Nora is haunted by images of her father and she becomes obsessed with finding out what really happened to him that night he left for Portland and never came home.
The farther Nora delves into the mystery of her father’s death, the more she comes to question if her Nephilim blood line has something to do with it as well as why she seems to be in danger more than the average girl. Since Patch isn’t answering her questions and seems to be standing in her way, she has to start finding the answers on her own. Relying too heavily on the fact that she has a guardian angel puts Nora at risk again and again. But can she really count on Patch or is he hiding secrets darker than she can even imagine?

My Thoughts:
So I recently read Hush Hush a few weeks ago and thought it was a great read. I was so excited that Barnes and Noble was offering up sneak peaks of this book on their site so I got an ARC, my first ever btw. Upon getting the book I just had to start it, I got past the first chapter and had to put it down. I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the book again for several days because I felt it reflected some things that happened in the Twilight Series by Meyer.
Eventually I had to pick back up the book because the discussion was going to take place on Barnes and Nobles’ site. Once I got past my first reaction I slowly started to get into the book and back into the world created in Hush, Hush. New characters were introduced and we got to learn more about the exsisting characters. I want to keep this as spoiler free as possible so I’m not going to tell you much.
I did admire how Becca can keep you guessing all the way through the book. I felt that the mystery in this book was better than the one in Hush, Hush. I just love trying to figure out all the twists and turns, some are easy and some keep you guessing till the end. I find it great when an author can keep you on your toes and the ending can be a fun surprise for anyone reading it. Trust me as soon as you finish Crescendo you will be dying to read book three in this series.
I have to say that I love how the series is a mix between romance, suspense, and mystery. Overall Crescendo had more mystery than Hush, Hush but it was lacking in the romance area this time around.

I give this book 4.5 stars.

Filed Under: Young Adult (YA) Review

In My Mailbox (5)

October 4, 2010 By Alexa 1 Comment

This is a weekly theme hosted by The Story Siren.

I won these two books pictured.
Almost Human The First Trilogy I won from From the Shadows. Melanie the author signed the book to me with a cute personal note. So big thanks to From the Shadows blog as well as Melanie Nowak!

By Midnight I won from The Norwegian Book Girl. This was part of a huge giveaway she was having and this book was published in the UK so many people here in the US haven’t heard about it. So big thanks to The Norwegian Book Girl blog!