Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly blog post by Jill over at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights releases we're eagerly awaiting.

Adeluna is a soldier. Five years ago, she helped the magic-rich island of Grace Loray overthrow its oppressor, Argrid, a country ruled by religion. But adjusting to postwar life has not been easy. When an Argridian delegate vanishes during peace talks with Grace Loray’s new Council, Argrid demands brutal justice—but Lu suspects something more dangerous is at work.

Devereux is a pirate. As one of the outlaws called stream raiders who run rampant on Grace Loray, he pirates the island’s magic plants and sells them on the black market. But after Argrid accuses raiders of the diplomat’s abduction, Vex becomes a target. An expert navigator, he agrees to help Lu find the Argridian—but the truth they uncover could be deadlier than any war.

Benat is a heretic. The crown prince of Argrid, he harbors a secret obsession with Grace Loray’s forbidden magic. When Ben’s father, the king, gives him the shocking task of reversing Argrid’s fear of magic, Ben has to decide if one prince can change a devout country—or if he’s building his own pyre.

As conspiracies arise, Lu, Vex, and Ben will have to decide who they really are...and what they are willing to become for peace.

And now that I have successfully finished Sara's first trilogy, I am ready for her new series! Yeah...I'm weird and won't let myself start a new series by an author until the previous one is finished! Or with whatever order I happen to read them in as I am close to reading my first Megan Shepherd book and I still have two back series of hers to read too! Whelp! 

TITLE: These Rebel Waves

AUTHOR: Sara Raasch

PUBLISHER: Balzer & Bray

GENRE: Fantasy YA

RELEASE DATE: August 7, 2018

 

Review--The Dead List by Jennifer L. Armentrout

It's Ella's senior year of high school and she and her best friend Linds plan to make it the best year ever. At Brock Cochran's end of summer pool party, the girls vow to have as much fun as possible before they head off to different colleges next fall. But when Ella is mysteriously attacked on her way home from the party, everything changes. Ella's carefree senior year plans disintegrate as she finds herself at the center of an attempted murder investigation.

Ella tries to move on, but her attacker isn't done yet. He shows himself in the form of horrifying signs and symbols: a clown mask strewn on her bed, a dead bird in her backpack, a shadow moving past her window in the night. And as the weeks pass, it turns out that Ella isn't the only one being tormented.

With the help of an old flame, Jensen Carver, and her friends and family, Ella tries to attain some sense of normalcy, but she can't seem to shake the feeling that there's a dark pattern hidden in the killer's every move. Suddenly, even those in her innermost circle seem suspicious. In her seemingly safe West Virginia town, Ella starts to wonder who she can trust.

After years of waiting and almost ready to open up this book, I have finally read Jennifer L. Armentrout’s The Dead List! I initially wanted to read it when it was on Wattpad but I never got around to it. I was never near WiFi when reading for the most part and then when I finally got the bound finished copy, I still hadn’t found the time to read it, until this week!

It seems there’s nothing from Jennifer’s brain that I don’t love! Lol. Granted I still avoid contemporaries like the plague, but everything else from her, I’ve read and loved! The Dead List is no different! This was a creeptastic thriller that had me jumping at every turn and trying to figure out the whodunit when I wasn’t shaking in my shoes! I remember enjoying her previous YA thriller, Don’t Look Back, so I had high expectations for this one! Plus it’s around Halloween time, there’s a kidnapper/killer on the loose, and oh yeah, he’s fond of clown masks. If that doesn’t scream scary I don’t know what else would!

Ella and her friends are getting ready to start their senior year of high school and it’s as Ella is leaving a party that she gets attacked. One girl has already gone missing before this and no one was thinking anything too serous of it yet, maybe she ran away or something like that. But when it’s clear that someone was trying to take Ella, to kill her, things get serious real fast. If it hadn’t been for another student at the time, she would’ve been a goner.

The student in question is one Jensen Carver, one of her childhood friends from long ago. Though the two haven’t spoken in years. But when Ella decides she’s not going to be a victim again and takes self-defense classes, she wasn’t prepared for Jensen to be her teacher.

It would seem though that the kidnapper isn’t done with Ella yet, because she’s clearly being stalked by him. Seeing his hideous clown mask in places, finding dead birds in random places. Seriously creepy things that shouldn’t be happening. It would seem no one is safe in the quite little town.

I have to say that this was one seriously twisted mystery! I loved it to pieces for being so creepy and scary! Definitely a potential Halloween read! What makes this sooo dang creepy is that it has the air of reality to it! I find that’s one of the reasons why I like thrillers. As I’ve always said, to me thrillers are super creepy because there are monsters in them too…real ones! And sadly, I feel like these creepy, scary things are likely to happen in real life. Hopefully not, but there’s all those true crime shows on TV that beg to differ.

The pacing to this one was spot on!! I mean, by the end of the first chapter we already have Ella’s attack and then events thereafter are crucial to the story as well. Like with most thrillers, perhaps, the pacing is a sort of slow and steady buildup, because obviously the climax will be with the reveal of the killer. But with this one, you still have seriously creepy things happening. Ella is be stalked by whoever is doing these things and people are still going missing throughout it all. It was very methodical. And for a while I wasn’t sure where things were going, but then a pattern is pointed out to us. One that will leave you head spinning with possibilities…at least mine was!

But what would a JLA book be without a little romance. Naturally, there’s something between Jensen and Ella and I have to say it was one of the sweet budding romances that gave me all the feels. The two have a history together, one that goes to more than just childhood friendships but that, along with other mysteries that are alluded to, are slow to be revealed. The timing of the reveals though is just right!

The Dead List is a book filled with many a mystery! It’s a dark and spooky read that I would suggest reading in daylight hours only…preferably when you’re not alone! Lol! It’s a book that will have you jumping at every little noise and questioning everything within its pages! A most delightful and creeptastic read indeed!



Overall Rating 5/5 stars

 

Teaser & Top Ten Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by Purple Princess of The Purple Booker.

Here are the rules:

1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a page
3. Pick out 2 lines that are SPOILER FREE
4. Name the title, author, etc.


I'M FINALLY READING IT!! After years of telling myself to sit down and read it on Wattpad and then missing said opportunity and constantly making this my next read...I'M READING IT!! Lol!!! And you'll be SHOCKED to see that I even went UNDER the 2 sentence limit this time!!

"Linds liked to give me a hard time about having my nose stuck in a book, but sometimes I needed my head out of real life, and reading was the best and quickest way to do it." p 16 

TITLE: The Dead List
AUTHOR: Jennifer L. Armentrout
PUBLISHER: Self Published
GENRE: Thriller YA
RELEASE DATE: April 25, 2017 

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.



This week's topic is: Favorite Novellas/Short Stories    

*in no particular order

 

 

10. DARK CRAVING by Veronica Wolff--perhaps one of my most favorite series ever! A beautifully underappreciated vampire series that I fully heartedly loved! This was Ronan's novella, just a little snippet into the mind of one of my all time favorite book crushes! Tho crushing on the younger guys skeeves me out sometimes! Lol.

9. LIFE AFTER LEGEND by Marie Lu--I loved this little segment! It was just a further detailed lining to the ending of a great series!! I liked the little added umph!

8. WE CAN BE MENDED by Veronica Roth--as one of the very few people who enjoyed the Divergent trilogy in its entirety, I was sooo happy Veronica wrote this little story! It kind of eased the pain I went through with Allegiant. As I might have said in my review, or afterwards, I was more sad about Four's reaction to what happened than what actually happened, though it saddened me too!

7. CRIMSON DAGGER by Morgan Rhodes--any story that involves Magnus is a good story! A GREAT story in fact!

6. THE MAIDEN THIEF by Melissa Marr--this was a fascinating and enjoyable retelling of Bluebeard! It was just as creepy as expected!

5. A HAUNTING IS BREWING by Juliet Blackwell--though I am massively behind in both series of Juliet's, I LOVED that she did a crossover of her two main characters! Since they live in the same area, I always wondered what would happen if they crossed paths, and this story tells us just what that was!

4. NEVER TO SLEEP by Rachel Vincent--kicking it old school with this one! I LOVED the Soul Screamers series way back when! And while Sophie was never a favorite character so much, since she was so nasty to Kaylee, but I must admit, this novella changes the perspective just a bit! She was misunderstood and this story allowed her light to shine!

3. WAYLAID by Kim Harrison--another wonderful crossover from two awesome series! I loved the Hollows series and Rachel was a favorite heroine for ages! Peri is awesome as well and I can't wait for the rest of her story! While this was a short story, it was pretty perfect that the two heroines got to meet if for a moment!

2. SHATTERED GLASS by Maria V. Snyder--though its only 2 years old I am struggling to remember this one! Eek! I hate when that happens! This was an added little story with Opal and I was so happy to return to the Glass world, which is still the Study world! I know I gave it high marks and if I took the time to re-read my review I'd probably remember a little bit of at least! Lol!

1. THE PROPOSAL by Meg Cabot--I ADORED The Mediator series growing up and when Meg came out with an additional adult installment two years ago, I was in love! Even better was that she added a prequel novella to the seventh book that basically showed how Suze and Jesse got engaged!! This will forever be one of my most favorite series! Suze reminds me a bit of Veronica Mars, if Veronica worked with ghosts that is! Lol!

BONUS PICK!

OBSIDIAN BLADE by Morgan Rhodes--because there were two novellas in the Falling Kingdom series about my favorite character, I naturally HAD to choose both novellas! More Magnus is always a happy time! Plus it was these novellas that helped us to better understand our broody, moody prince!

 

Let's Discuss: My Bookcases

I decided today that I would give you all a tour of my bookcase collection! Sadly, there's no one room for them, nor do I have a set where they're all together on one wall, I hope for that whenever I can have a place of my own!

My Bookcases

This is my narrow bookcase that I remember deciding to buy for my room because it fit perfectly! All I had to do was move my DVD towers out! Easy sacrifice! Lol!

This is the first nice one I bought from a furniture shop that sadly went out of business. But I LOVE it! It's my only 6-shelf bookcase and as you can see I utilize every inch of the space I have!

This is my nightstand bookcase that just has two little shelves. I had the brilliant idea that it should be my Jennifer L. Armentrout case but since she writes so super fast, that might have to be moved one day soon!

And I was a little too lazy to actually move my clothes out to show this one better. It's a little 3-shelf case that pretty much started out as my first one for my room. I moved it into my closet sometime back after I decided to toss out my shoe rack! I got rid of a lot of unnecessary things to make room for more bookcases! And as you might be able to see, this is my Maria V. Snyder case! Pretty soon I will need to upgrade to one of these for my Jennifer L. Armentrout books! Sadly, there's no room on the other side of my closet! Whelp!!

These were the last two bookcases I bought from my furniture shop before they closed! They're slightly different from the first one since it had been a few years between my buying them. But these beauties may only be 5-shelf cases, but they are extra wide!! I went for the wider range than the standard one! I keep these in the "spare bedroom" but I consider it the library! And if it wasn't for the bed I'd totally add another one in there!

These are the two bookcases I had to move around yet again during a big shift. They are currently downstairs, protected by sheets from dog hair and dust! Basically these are my A-early Ds shelves!! Lol.

This bookcase was in my grandparents' house and after they passed we acquired it. I've double-stacked a collection of Mass-Market paperbacks plus other random trades...mostly completed series and other older books that I've finished and whatnot. Sadly, the doors on the bottom are filled with VHS tapes that we have yet to do something with! Hopefully one day I can fill that space with books...and possibly fully acquire possession of this beauty!

This is the downstairs entertainment center and I was given 1/3 of it, plus the bottom shelf here on the left which houses my Harry Potter collection. The HP collection basically consists of my original 7 books, plus the 4 Houses of the 20th Anniversary of the first book, the 10th Anniversary of the US edition fo the first book and then some random books that I couldn't fit else where! Then here on the right is my other collection of older books! Lol! Some books are really old, and yet there's still an unfinished series on here that I need to read the last two books so I can add those on there too!

Then a few years ago I had the brilliant idea to buy a "decorative" trunk--the ones that people tend to use to store blankets and pillows--I decided to store a portion of my TBR books in it! Yes...this is just a portion of my TBR books! The rest are on one of my library bookcases, but even those are slowly being moved elsewhere...such as the closet in the spare room and a drawer in the trundle bed there too! Lol.

Then for laughs, here's my closet shelf where I store a few more older paperbacks! Another brilliant idea I had was to use the shelf in my closet for more books! I store paperbacks up here for the most part...plus a few Bath and Body Works products and my Blogger cards as well! Lol!

And never to be outdone, I use a small portion of the closet floor for a few hardcovers as well! You can never say that I don't utilize every inch of space I have! I mean who needs closet space anyway? LOL!

And with the exception of the one shelf I have in the living-room bookcase that concludes the tour of my bookcases which are, as you can see, spread out all over the house! It makes shelving new "Read" books a healthy dose of exercise! It was worse when those two bookcases downstairs were cases A-B and L-M! Fixing that was one tiring afternoon! Lol.

It's Monday! What are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. It's a fun meme where we gather to share what we've read last week and our reading plans for this week.

Last Week I Read:

Frost Like Night by Sara Raasch (4 stars)
A Sorrow Fierce and Falling by Jessica Cluess (ARC)--Review to come at a later date

Reviews That Were Posted:

Kill the Farm Boy by Delilah S. Dawson & Kevin Hearne (ARC) (4 stars)

Campfire by Shawn Sarles (ARC) (4.5 stars)

Currently Reading:

The Dead List by Jennifer L. Armentrout

What I Plan to Read this Week:

Echoes by Alice Reeds

Other Posts of Interest:

Let's Discuss: Favorite Animal Companions 

Teaser & Top Ten Tuesdays 

Waiting on Wednesday 

Still Looking for a Roomie for The Origin Event!! 

Let's Discuss: Book Covers 

Random Thursday 

Let's Discuss: Roswell Redux 

Book Blogger Hop 

Let's Discuss: Friday the 13th 

A-Z Book Tag 

Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks! The meme is now hosted by Tynga's Reviews and Reading Reality.

 
I had a pretty quiet week when it came to books. Sadly there were some that I wanted but just couldn't afford to buy them this week. The first time in awhile where I didn't buy a book during release week. It kind of hurt. But what can you do? Lol.

Here's what I bought:

Beast: A Tale of Love and Revenge by Lisa Jensen--I couldn't resist buying a keeper copy! It's soooo pretty too! Can't wait to take some bookstagram shots with it! I was just in my game of doing them yesterday but then the battery died! Lol! Next time I guess!

 

 

Then I also got my bookmark that I had backordered from Amazon! And it's beautiful!! I LOVE IT!!

 

 

Then my library had a summer reading program that is reminiscent of the long ago 600 minutes program, except the minutes are longer and the prizes are different. One of them was choosing a book from what they had and this was one that sounded the most interesting that I didn't already have! Lol! Still a little unsure about it, but a free book is a free book and you never know, maybe one day I will read it!

The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough

Then finally for review from the publisher I got:

Echoes by Alice Reeds (ARC)--Super excited for this one since it was just my WoW this past week! Definitely bumping this up to my next read!!

And that was my haul this week! What did you all get?