Cover Reveal: Unexpected by Lilly Avalon

Title: Unexpected

Author: Lilly Avalon
Genre: NA, Standalone

Release Date: July 21, 2015

Ever had one of those days? Alina Lyons is having one. Everything keeps falling apart and going wrong. Just when she thinks it couldn't get worse, it does. After a case of mistaken identity and a broken heart, she finds herself questioning the things she thought she knew. She wonders who she can turn to or trust anymore.

An unlikely bond with her former best friend's ex, Ryan Wilcox, sends her life in a new direction. He offers her a place to stay while she gets her life back on track. His friendship is exactly what she's been missing--what she's been needing. Alina's never felt this alive. As time goes by, the dynamic of their relationship becomes more than either of them expected. A few innocent kisses could lead them in a new direction, but are they prepared for what's on the other side?

Only one way to find out.

| Goodreads |

_______________________________________________________________________

About the Author:
Lilly Avalon is the author of the Resist series as well as other erotic romances. She's somewhere in the midst of her twenties and lives mostly in the stories in her head. When she's not enveloped in the worlds she creates, she's out in the real world making stories happen. That or reading other romances. It's a toss-up.

| Website | Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook |

Feature & Follow Friday (34) / Friday 56 (3)

Feature & Follow Friday is a meme hosted by Parajunkiee's View & Alison Can Read. Check out their blogs and the two Featured Bloggers of the week! This is great for finding amazing new blogs to follow and for gaining followers yourself!

This weeks question is: 
How would you pitch to the biz to make your favorite book into a movie?

I answered: 

I have literally no idea how those things work so I don't know? Probably just tell them how good it is and that people would love it. lol But honestly I much prefer when books get adapted into TV shows rather than movies because I feel like a lot can get lost when writing a movie script because of the time constraints.

What about you? Leave your answer to this weeks question in the comments below.
___________________________________________________________________________

The Friday 56 is a meme hosted by Freda's Voice. Basically you flip to page 56 (or 56% in your eReader) of any book and post a sentence or two (more if you want) from that page without being too spoiler-y. This gives us a glimpse into what you are reading or have read, and may even prompt us to add your book to our TBR piles!

My teaser:

"You like it here so far?" Rubina asks. "Feel like home? This is your home, you know. If your family hadn't just run off, you'd be from here, just like us."  

I stare at her, unsure how to respond to what sounds like an accusation. 

"Oh"--she laughs--"don't make that face! I'm only joking. I'm your phupo's oldest friend. She's like my sister, really. She'll tell you herself not to mind me." 

Excerpt From: Aisha Saeed. “Written in the Stars.”

Cover Reveal: Off the Ice by Julie Cross

Title: Off the Ice

Author: Julie Cross
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Genre: YA, Contemporary

Release Date: Spring 2016

Junior Tate Tanley hasn't made it off the bench since joining the hockey team as a freshman. But after the Otters' start goalie leaves during a huge game, Tate's got the attention of the entire town. Including Claire O'Connor, who's mysteriously back in Juniper Falls and who he hasn't seen in a year. But Tate hasn't stopped thinking about Claire or what happened the night before she left.

Claire O'Connor should be enjoying college life in the big city. Instead, she's serving drinks to handsy fisherman and taking care of her sick father back in Juniper Falls. And when she spots her best friend's little brother, Tate, playing in a big varsity game, she's thrown for a loop. Tate has grown up a lot: more muscles, more hotness, more...everything. But Claire's responsibility is to her family, and she doesn't have time for boys--especially not hockey palyers.

As games, parties, and town drama thrown Tate and Claire together, they can't ignore what happened last fall--and they can't ignore what's brewing between then now. It's finally time for them to unravel the secrets of their past and face the future together.

| Goodreads |

_______________________________________________________________________

About the Author:
Julie Cross is the International Bestselling author of the Tempest series, a young adult science fiction trilogy which includes Tempest, Vortex, and the final installment, Timestorm. (St. Martin's Press). She's also the author of Letters to Nowhere (8/13), a mature young adult romance set in the world of elite gymnastics, as well as several forthcoming young adult and new adult novels with publishers like Entangled, Sourcebooks, HarperCollins, and St. Martins Press/Thomas Dunne Books.

Julie lives in Central Illinois with her husband and three children. She's a former gymnast, longtime gymnastics fan, coach, and former Gymnastics Program Director with the YMCA. She's a lover of books, devouring several novels a week, especailly in the young adult and new adult genres. Outside of her reading and writing credibility's, Julie Cross is a committed--but not talented--long distance runner, creator of imaginary beach vacations, Midwest bipolar weather survivor, expired CPR certification card holder, as well as a ponytail and gym shoe addict. You can find her online via twitter, her personal website, email, facebook, Goodreads, or co-moderating the YA writers section of reddit.

| Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads |

Waiting on Wednesday (36)

"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. 

_______________________________________________________________________

Delicate Monsters
by Stephanie Kuehn

Release Date: June 9, 2015

From Barnes & Noble:
When nearly killing a classmate gets seventeen-year-old Sadie Su kicked out of her third boarding school in four years, she returns to her family's California vineyard estate. Here, she's meant to stay out of trouble. Here, she's meant to do a lot of things. But it's hard. She's bored. And when Sadie's bored, the only thing she likes is trouble.

Emerson Tate's a poor boy living in a rich town, with his widowed mother and strange, haunted little brother. All he wants his senior year is to play basketball and make something happen with the girl of his dreams. That's why Emerson's not happy Sadie's back. An old childhood friend, she knows his worst secrets. The thing she longs to forget. The things she won't ever let him.

Haunted is a good word for fifteen-year-old Miles Tate. Miles cna see the future, after all. And he knows his vision of tragic violence at his school will come true, because his visions always do. That's what he tells the new girl in town. The one who listens to him. The one who recognizes the darkness of his past.

But can Miles stop the violence? Or has the future already been written? Maybe tragedy is his destiny. Maybe it's all of theirs. 

| Goodreads | Barnes & Noble | Amazon |

Review (50): I Was Here by Gayle Forman

I Was Here

Gayle Forman

Release Date: January 27, 2015

Publisher: Viking Books For Young Readers

Pages: 270

Format: Hardcover

Source: Library

Author Website 

Book Website 

My Thoughts: 
Meg and Cody have been inseparable since kindergarten, so when Cody gets Meg’s suicide email she has no idea what to think. They were supposed to know everything about each other, so why did Cody have absolutely no idea Meg was in this much pain? When she is asked to pack up Meg’s things at her college apartment, she stumbles upon an encrypted file Meg failed to delete off her laptop. Once Cody is able to open the file, she becomes obsessed with figuring out what all the documents inside mean and what role, if any, they had in Meg’s suicide.

This deals with some pretty heavy topics—depression and suicide—but ultimately this is a story about forgiveness. Cody is angry and lost after Meg’s suicide. She feels responsible and guilty because she wasn’t there for Meg during her lowest, but she also feels betrayed and doesn’t know how to forgive Meg for leaving her. She becomes obsessed with finding someone to blame because she does not believe that her beautiful, amazing, full-of-life best friend could have consciously chosen to end her own life. She discovers a lot about Meg she didn’t previously know and understands that in order to move on from this she must not only forgive Meg, but she has to forgive herself as well.

Cody and Ben fell flat for me as characters and so did their romance. There are brief moments where they connect and bond and whatever, but they spend more time apart and not talking/fighting then falling in love (at least in my opinion). I just didn’t feel the chemistry that is so common in all of Forman’s other books with these two. But falling in love really isn’t the focal point of this story so I guess that’s why the romance didn’t have to be as well developed.

I will read anything Gayle Forman writes because I absolutely loved If I Stay/Where She Went and Just One Day/Just One Year. All of her books are different but what stays constant is how emotionally gripping they are. I think I might have started this with my expectations set a bit too high because, although I liked the book I didn’t think it was amazing. I didn’t connect as much with these characters and this story as I have with all her other books. 

| Goodreads | Barnes & Noble | Amazon |

Top Ten Tuesday (11)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

So this weeks topic is: Top Ten Books I'd Love to See as Movies/TV Shows

• A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket - A movie already exists but they butchered it badly, so I'd love to see a remake that actually does this series justice.
• Uglies by Scott Westerfeld - There's an IMDB page already created for a movie adaptation (maybe a tv show, I'm not sure) but there's no information as it's still categorized as "in development". I'm not sure if they're still working on turning this into a movie, but I'd love to see it on the big screen.
• Looking for Alaska by John Green - So far this is my favorite of his books, so hopefully it follows in the footsteps of it's siblings and gets turned into a movie as well. 
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - This also has an "in development" IMDB page.
• The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer - I think this would be a cool ABC Family show, kind of OUAT-esque.
• The Blonde by Anna Godbersen - This is a cool reimagining of Marilyn Monroe's life that would probably make an interesting movie. 
• The A-List by Zoey Dean - This could be the West Coast version of Gossip Girl.
• Anything Gayle Forman, Sarah Dessen, Jen Calonita, Ally Carter, Susane Colasanti, etc would be awesome as well. 

Interview with Diane Rinella, Author of Love's Forbidden Flower

Title: Love's Forbidden Flower

Author: Diane Rinella

Release Date: Nov 28, 2012
Genre: Edgy/NA Romance

The heart cares not what society forbids.

Lily nurtures a secret love for a flawless man—the one who is her soul mate. Donovan is gorgeous, charismatic, and delights in all of Lily’s talents and quirks. Their innate knowledge of each other is almost telepathic. Together they interlock like fine threads creating luxurious silk.

But society dictates this picture-perfect adoration is the ghastliest of all possibilities.

As Lily embarks on a quest for the romance the heavens intended, her suitor turns reluctant. Desperate to uncover why Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hiding decayed from a tender-hearted gentleman into a ferociously self-serving, cocky bastard, Lily is prepared for battle when it comes to the salvation of her soul mate. However, Donovan traps Lily in a mental game of chess, leaving her to question his sanity. When Lily’s revelations about Donovan’s destructive alter ego lead to an unconceivable truth, can she help Donovan survive fate’s cruel joke?

Impassioned, witty, and deeply moving, Love’s Forbidden Flower is filled with stunning controversies that will forever haunt your heart.

| Goodreads | Amazon | B&N |

Hi Diane! What can you tell us about your book in 140 characters or less?
Love’s Forbidden Flower is a dark human rights piece disguised as a witty romance novel.

What inspired you to write Love's Forbidden Flower?

The whole thing started when I watched The Buttercup Chain, a 60’s counter culture film. The two main characters are cousins, via identical twins, who were raised as brother and sister. A small part of the story is based on their obvious romantic connection. The woman is accepting of her emotions while the man is conflicted. Both the book and the film taunted you with the situation but never gave you enough of it to make the storyline satisfying. Upon doing research I discovered that there are so many biases toward the subject that I could not find a single book that really tackled it non-judgmentally. Yet the more I dug, the more common I found the real-life situation to be. There are definitely stories to be told, and I wanted to do so while making the reader forget about the relation and just see the unfairness of societies biases. 

Do you ever experience writer’s block? How do you get through it?

Definitely. With me it is brought on by a lack of confidence, either about myself or my work. Once I find the source, I just need to work my way through it. Life then falls back into place.\

Tell us 4 interesting things about yourself.

• I’m a vintage rock fanatic who shows off her autographs with pride.
• I am such an original Battlestar Galactica fangirl that I made several costumes, including two light-up helmets.
• I drink tea out of a cup used on the original Dark Shadows TV show.
• I’ve been involved in the Rocky Horror Picture Show since I was seventeen.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? 

I worked as an office manager for a company that provided in home nursing. I had a horrible boss who constantly berated people to the point of tears. We would come in each morning and wonder who would be the day’s target.

What book are you currently reading?

All Too Beautiful, the story of Steve Marriott. I love British men!

THIS OR THAT:

• Coke or Pepsi? “All I wanted was a Pepsi, and she wouldn’t give it to me!”
• Sweet or salty? Combined!
• Summer or winter? Summer weather, winter holidays.
• Full House or Family Matters? Got any cheese?
• Dogs or cats? Cats to own, dogs to play with.
• Cake or pie? I used to make high-end wedding cakes.
• History or science? History, for the romance value.

Once again, thank you for sitting down with us & good luck with your new novel!

_______________________________________________________________________

About the Author:
Enjoying San Francisco as a backdrop, the ghosts in Diane’s 150-year old Victorian home augment the chorus in her head. With insomnia as their catalyst, these voices have become multifarious characters that haunt her well into the sun’s crowning hours, refusing to let go until they have manipulated her into succumbing to their whims. Her experiences as an actress, business owner, artisan cake designer, software project  manager, Internet radio disc jockey, vintage rock n’ roll journalist/fan girl, and lover of dark and quirky personalities influence her idiosyncratic writing. She is currently completing the sequel to Love’s Forbidden Flower.

| Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter |