Waiting on Wednesday (68)

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases we can not wait to read! This meme is the perfect way to add books to your TBR list. Along with upcoming releases, I sometimes include books that I have not had the chance to read or buy even if they have already come out. 

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The Glittering Court
by Richelle Mead

Release Date: April 5, 2016

From B&N:

Big and sweeping, spanning the refined palaces of Osfrid to the gold dust and untamed forests of Adoria, The Glittering Court tells the story of Adelaide, an Osfridian countess who poses as her servant to escape an arranged marriage and start a new life in Adoria, the New World. But to do that, she must join the Glittering Court. 

Both a school and a business venture, the Glittering Court is designed to transform impoverished girls into upper-class ladies who appear destined for powerful and wealthy marriages in the New World. Adelaide naturally excels in her training and even makes a few friends: the fiery former laundress Tamsin and the beautiful Sirminican refugee Mira. She manages to keep her true identity hidden from all but one: the intriguing Cedric Thorn, son of the wealthy proprietor of the Glittering Court.

When Adelaide discovers that Cedric is hiding a dangerous secret of his own, together, they hatch a scheme to make the best of Adelaide’s deception. Complications soon arise—first, as they cross the treacherous seas from Osfrid to Adoria, and later, when Adelaide catches the attention of a powerful governor.

But no complication will prove quite as daunting as the potent attraction simmering between Adelaide and Cedric. An attraction that, if acted on, would scandalize the Glittering Court and make them both outcasts in wild, vastly uncharted lands. . . .

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I will literally pick up anything by Richelle Mead at this point.

Cover Reveal of The Replacement Crush by Lisa Brown Roberts

Title: The Replacement Crush

Author: Lisa Brown Roberts

Release Date: Sept 6, 2016
Publisher: Entangled Teen

True love can’t be strategized.

Romance book blogger Vivian Galdi is a girl with a plan: the Replacement Crush mission. After her longtime crush pretends their secret summer kissing sessions never happened, Vivian creates a list of safe targets, determined to protect her heart and avoid anyone who pings her zing meter. But nerd-hot Dallas, the new guy in town, sends the mission and Vivian’s zing meter into chaos. While designing software for the bookstore where Vivian works, Dallas wages a counter-mission, analyzing his target and taking advantage of the tactical errors in her strategy.

Does Dallas just like a good game of Replacement Crush Battlefield, or is he on his own mission to prove to Vivian that true love isn’t a matter of strategy? And how much collateral damage can they both sustain during the heat of battle?

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About the Author:

Lisa Brown Roberts still hasn't recovered from the teenage trauma of nearly tweezing off both eyebrows and having to pencil them in for an entire school year. This and other angst-filled memories inspire her to write YA books about navigating life's painful and funny dramas, and falling in love along the way. She lives in Colorado in a house full of books, boys, four-legged prima donnas, and lots of laughter. 

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Review (77): Stitching Snow by R.C. Lewis

Stitching Snow 

by R.C. Lewis

 

Release Date: October 14, 2014

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Pages: 336

Format: Hardcover

Source: Library

Author Website 

My Thoughts: 

Stitching Snow is a unique and futuristic retelling of the widely popular German fairy tale, "Snow White". Although loosely based, there are still many key identifying features that recall the beloved classic. Essie has been living alone in the barren tundra of Thanda for the past several years. She keeps to herself and spends her days tinkering, coding and repairing the 7 loyal drones that help run the local mines. Her solitude is disrupted when a boy her age crash-lands near her home. Begrudgingly she agrees to help Dane repair his ship and gets caught up in a war that she had risked her life so many years ago to escape.

Fairytale retellings are my jam and this was no exception. Essie is a truly fantastic and complex heroine. She is badass, brave and smart, but also very cautious. I was truly impressed with how she handles life on Thanda—especially since it is a planet populated mostly by brute men. (What sixteen year old girl willing participates in cage fights for cash and street cred? lol) 

I also really like how intricately detailed all the planets are and how each has a unique climate, population and their own set of problems. Despite all the added elements, I didn’t find it confusing in the least trying to keep track of when, where and what everything was happening. 

Another thing I want to mention is the simple yet beautiful cover. Snow White’s poisonous apple with the almost machinery-like designs are perfect representations of the story in my opinion. 

This reminded me of The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer just because of how the universes are set up and because of the sci-fi elements added to the retellings. I really like both and if you're already a fan of TLC, then I think you'll enjoy this one as well. However, that being said, don’t lump these two together because Stitching Snow deserves its own recognition. (I might prefer Essie over Cinder though if I’m being completely honest…) I’m not sure if Spinning Starlight is the next book in the series (or if this is even a series at all?), but I’m for sure excited to read that one as well!

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Waiting on Wednesday (67)

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases we can not wait to read! This meme is the perfect way to add books to your TBR list. Along with upcoming releases, I sometimes include books that I have not had the chance to read or buy even if they have already come out. 

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Girl in the Blue Coat
by Monica Hesse

Release Date: April 5, 2016

From B&N:

Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering sought-after black market goods to paying customers, her nights hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the Dutch front lines when the Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as a small act of rebellion.

On a routine delivery, a client asks Hanneke for help. Expecting to hear that Mrs. Janssen wants meat or kerosene, Hanneke is shocked by the older woman's frantic plea to find a person--a Jewish teenager Mrs. Janssen had been hiding, who has vanished without a trace from a secret room. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with such dangerous work, but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and stunning revelations that lead her into the heart of the resistance, open her eyes to the horrors of the Nazi war machine, and compel her to take desperate action.

Beautifully written, intricately plotted, and meticulously researched, Girl in the Blue Coat is an extraordinary, gripping novel from a bright new voice.

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I looooove historical fiction and this sounds so, so good.

Giveaway of Murder Madness Such Sweet Sadness by Jamie Blair & Dawn Rae Miller

Title: Murder Madness Such Sweet Sadness (Kiss Kill Love Him Still, #2)
Author: Jamie Blair 
& Dawn Rae Miller
Release Date: March 21, 2016 

Haddie, Livie, Reggie, and Val. Four girls with secrets to tell.

A murderer is loose on the FU campus, and despite their best efforts, the police are nowhere near making an arrest. It’s beginning to look like Jackson’s murderer may walk free — until someone calling themselves The Fifth begins threatening each girl.

Suddenly, The Fifth starts revealing the girls’ darkest secrets:

Reggie is the campus drug dealer, Livie is a kleptomaniac, Haddie hasn’t remained a virgin, and Val is struggling with her sexuality.

With no option but to work together, the girls dive deeper into Jackson’s web of lies, and hope to unmask The Fifth while solving the mystery of Jackson’s death.

The more answers they get, the more dangerous life at FU becomes — not just for the girls, but for the people they love the most.

Which makes a girl wonder, who’s next on the murderer’s list?

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Book 1, Kiss Kill Love Him Still is now FREE! Buy Links:

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About the Author:

Jamie Blair lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, their two kids and a cat that broke into their house and refused to leave. She won a young author's contest in third grade, but it probably shouldn't count since her mom wrote most of her entry. LEAP OF FAITH is her first novel. She promises her mom didn't write one word of it. 

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Dawn Rae Miller is a Twitter and fashion addict whose favorite things in life are her family, gorgeous dresses, tea leaf salad, and French macarons. She splits her time between San Francisco and Northern Virginia, and is always up for a trip to Paris.

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Waiting on Wednesday (66)

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases we can not wait to read! This meme is the perfect way to add books to your TBR list. Along with upcoming releases, I sometimes include books that I have not had the chance to read or buy even if they have already come out. 

_______________________________________________________________________

Escaping Perfect
by Emma Harrison

Release Date: March 29, 2016

From B&N:

Gone Girl meets the TV show Nashville in this sultry summer read about a girl who runs away from her high-profile past to live the normal life she’s always wanted.

Cecilia Montgomery has been America’s sweetheart since the day she was born. A member of the prestigious Montgomery family—the US equivalent of royalty—her childhood was cut short after she was nearly kidnapped. Since then, Cecilia has been hidden away, her adolescence spent at an exclusive boarding school.

Her dreams of becoming a professional violinist—dashed.

Her desire to be a normal teenager—not possible.

Her relationship with her once-loving parents—bitter and strained.

Nothing about Cecilia’s life is what she would have planned for herself. So when an opportune moment presents itself, Cecilia seizes the chance to become someone else. To escape. To disappear. To have the life she always dreamed about, far away from her mother’s biting remarks and her sheltered upbringing.

Cecilia says goodbye to the Montgomery name and legacy to become Lia Washington: relaxed, wild, in love, free, and living on her own terms for the very first time. But being on your own isn’t always as easy as it seems…

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Cover Reveal & Excerpt: The Sound of Us by Julie Hammerle

Title: The Sound of Us
Author: Julie Hammerle

Release Date: June 7th 2016

Publisher: Entangled Teen

@kikeronis Turns out the best opera camp in Indiana is more like boot camp. Goodbye, #GameofThrones #TheWalkingDead #ProjectEarth

@kikeronis Silver lining to having your best friend stab you in the back: you’re no longer her constant tag-along. I can kick ass here.

@kikeronis What if you meet a hot nerdy drummer who understands your soul, but res hall basement jam sessions are forbidden & can get you kicked out?

@kikeronis I, sweatpants enthusiast & perpetual chorus girl, have to be ruthless enough to win 1 of the 7 scholarships, or no music school for me.

@kikeronis Forget opera domination, I'm headed for "opera camp disaster & cautionary tale." If I don't give up either music or the guy, I'll lose both.

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Excerpt:(Scrollbox) 

From the music app on my phone, Ani DiFranco belts out a choice insult just as Brie bursts through my dorm room door, crosses the room, and plops a giant cardboard box on the other bed.

“I guess we’re roommates,” she says. There were a bunch of boxes in the room when I arrived, and I wondered who they belonged to. I suppose that mystery is solved.

I scramble to stop Ani from singing anything else we both might regret later and I look up just in time to see Seth Banks crossing the threshold into my dorm room, carrying another larger, heavier box over to Brie’s side.

“Hi,” he says. “Kiki, right?” He knows my name. Seth Banks somehow knows my name.

I nod, and sneak a glance at the mirror on the wall next to my bed, assessing myself against the two model-caliber people in my dorm room. I’m still wearing the cat dress. My frizzy hair is up in a messy bun, but the effect actually works with my blue-plastic glasses. I look eccentric, but artsy, which may not be the best look of all time but it is, in fact, a look.

(You’re probably wondering who my celebrity twin is. Well, there aren’t a lot of women in pop culture who have my body type, i.e. dumpy. I’m too fat to be thin and too thin to be fat. Head-wise, I have the glasses and mouse-like features of Mary Katherine Gallagher from Saturday Night Live with hair like Hermione before someone gave her hot oil help between the second and third movies.)

Brie cocks an eyebrow at me and tucks her bottom lip under her top teeth as she picks up my backpack and drops it on the ground with a perfunctory thud. I had tossed it onto the blue papa-san chair in the middle of our room after I got back from the auditions. “That’s my chair,” she says. “My. Chair.” And then she proceeds to place a six-pack of Diet Coke into the fridge—My. Fridge.—because apparently that’s how fairness works.

Brie puts her hands on her hips and surveys my side of the room, which, honestly, does look like a tornado ripped through it. I came back to our room after auditions with the plan of unpacking all of my things, I really did. But instead I felt so overwhelmed, I had to take a few minutes to listen to Ani and decompress by writing horrible, secret poetry in my journal. But the few minutes turned into an hour, turned into me skipping dinner, turned into all of a sudden it’s 7:00 and my clothes are still strewn around the floor like party guests who refuse to leave.

To prove a point to Brie or something, I grab a stack of pictures from my desk and start sticking them up on the bulletin board. I don’t really want the pictures on my wall. I don’t need them, but I feel like they’re obligatory college student falderal, and that’s what I’m pretending to be this summer, a college student. My eyes linger over the pictures as I pin them, memories that seem so distant already. High school is a million miles away, which is kind of the point of my being in Indianapolis, so, success.

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About the Author:

Julie Hammerle is the author of The Sound of Us, which will be published by Entangled Teen in the summer of 2016. Before settling down to write "for real," she studied opera, taught Latin, and held her real estate license for one hot minute. Currently, she writes about TV on her blog Hammervision, ropes people into conversations about Game of Thrones, and makes excuses to avoid the gym. Her favorite YA-centric TV shows include 90210 (original spice), Felicity, and Freaks and Geeks. Her iPod reads like a 1997 Lilith Fair set list. She lives in Chicago with her husband, two kids, and a dog. They named the dog Indiana. 

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Unexpected Hiatus

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to take a quick few minutes and apologize for being inactive for the past few months! We had to move unexpectedly so I had to take a break from the blog as I've been super busy packing, unpacking, and finding a new job (ugh). But everything has finally settled down and I plan to get back into the swing of things in the next few days so expect some reviews and other related posts coming soon!

Joana