The Cozy Reader was on hiatus but is slowly beginning to add new content.
Follow along and enjoy some great reviews!
Category: Uncategorized
Review | The Girl with the Iron Touch (Steampunk Chronicles, #3) by Kady Cross
The Girl with the Iron Touch (Steampunk Chronicles, #3) by Kady Cross
HarequinTEEN | May 28, 2013 | 384 pages
Procurement
eARC via NetGalley
My Grade
Plot: 5
Setting: 5
Writing: 5
Originality: 5
Characters: 5
Romance: 5
Overall: 30/30 Perfection!
Title/Cover Bonus: 5
Overall
A perfect installment to the Steampunk Chronicles.
Continue reading “Review | The Girl with the Iron Touch (Steampunk Chronicles, #3) by Kady Cross”
Review | The Eternity Cure (Blood of Eden, #2) by Julie Kagawa
The Eternity Cure (Blood of Eden, #2) by Julie Kagawa
Harlequin TEEN | April 30, 2013 | 446 pages
Procurement
eARC via NetGalley
My Grade
Plot: 5
Setting: 5
Writing: 5
Originality: 5
Characters: 5
Romance: 5
Overall: 30/30! Awesomesauce!
Title/Cover Bonus: 2
Overall
text
Summary
Allison Sekemoto has vowed to rescue her creator, Kanin, who is being held hostage and tortured by the psychotic vampire Sarren. The call of blood leads her back to the beginning—New Covington and the Fringe, and a vampire prince who wants her dead yet may become her wary ally.
Even as Allie faces shocking revelations and heartbreak like she’s never known, a new strain of the Red Lung virus that decimated humanity is rising to threaten human and vampire alike.
Trailer
TEXT
First Line
text
Most Memorable Scene
That one time when Jackal finds himself in a precarious situation after a run in with a bad guy in a cell in the old hospital.
Plot
I don’t remember enjoying the first book as much as I did this second installment. I was thankful for the awesome review of events that happened in the first book in the beginning of this one. I usually find such reviews irritating but not this time. Since this is a sequel it is hard to explain the plot without giving anything away. I must say that Allie goes on one heck of an adventure. She runs into a number of past characters and a few new ones.
Setting
We are subjected to the sewers of New Covington yet again. We see a few new scenes from areas we didn’t get to visit in the first book and I found them refreshing. Seeing the Inner portion of a city from the inside instead of the outside was very cool. Julie did an amazing job of setting every scene. There is a ton of gore in this book though. I found myself eating and reading one day and I might have regretted it just a tiny bit.
Writing
This story is told from Allie’s perspective 99.999999%. Not until the very last scene do we switch point of views. I hate and love Julie for this all at the same time. The writing is impeccable. Brilliant.
Originality
When it comes to vampires it is hard to not find similarities I found myself comparing Jackal’s attitude to several vampires from the Vampire Diaries such as Damon and Klaus because they both have an air of being the bad guy yet retaining just a bit of humanity disguised as humor and arrogance. The fact that the rabids and Red Lung are a disease and was created by scientists puts this story into the sci-fi area as well. Finding a cure does make this a tiny bit more like VD than I’d like though but the characters, especially Kanin, make this a book to love no matter the likeness to an amazing television series.
Characters
Allie is on a mission and suffice it say that she is determined to do what she has set out to do: Find Kanin her sire. Allie’s journey takes her on an emotional roller coaster and it was so hard to end the book the way it did without wanting to hit something. I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book and I just hope Allie has the strength to keep going as the person she was before that ending.
Kanin is awesome. That is all. I wish he talked more. He was very enlightening in this book.
Romance
Fifth amendment. We may or may not see a previous character that has romantic relations with another character and they may or may not enteract with each other in a passionate way. Let is suffice to say that damn, that boy is fine, and sweet.
Title/Cover Bonus
Eh, I dislike both really. The covers do not impress me. They don’t shout anything worth picking up. The title doesn’t connect with the previous book in anyway.
Ending
I have already hinted that the ending is not nice. It really isn’t. The last few scenes are just awful. Heart wrenching awful. I do not envy Allie nor the others involved. I can NOT wait for the next book. If I thought this one was intense I will plan to brace myself for what it yet to come.
Series
The first book, The Immortal Rules, was published April 24, 2012.
The second book, The Eternity Cure, will publish today, April 30, 2013.
The third book has not been announced and will probably publish in April of 2014.
Connect with the Author
Who is Marcus Finch? | Clue #3
Stacking the Shelves | Week 48
Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga at Tynga’s Reviews.
Here’s what I got the past 2 weeks.
Review
Regine’s Book: A Teen Girl’s Last Words (True Stories) by Regine Stokke
Zest Books | October 23, 2012 | 336 pages
Summary (Goodreads)
Regine’s blog about living with Leukemia gained a huge following, and eventually became this book. She writes openly about emotional and physical aspects of her 15-month struggle to recover, and explains how her disease impacts her life. In the course of her illness, Regine has photography exhibits, goes to concerts, enjoys her friends & family, and advocates for registering as a blood and bone marrow donor. She was a typical teenager with an amazing will to live; and the lessons she learned have relevance for all of us. She died at home on December 3, 2009 with her family and cat by her side. Originally published in Norway, the book was selected by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture for a translation grant. Norwegian sales are as follows: 30,000 copies hardcover (May – Dec 2010); 17,000 copies paperback (Jan – Sept 2011)
[amazon_link id=”1595146032″ target=”_blank” ]The Ultra Violets[/amazon_link] by Sophie Bell
Razorbill | March 5, 2013 | 256 pages
Summary (Goodreads)
Meet four best friends. They’re not super…yet.
IRIS: Visionary, artist, leader–the glitter-glue that holds the group together.
CHERI: A girly-girl on platform roller-skates who’s never met a rescue puppy she didn’t immediately-and-madly love.
SCARLET: Short enough that you won’t see her sneaking up behind you. Freckled enough that you might mistake her for innocent. But look out! She can pants a bully faster than you can say O-M-Jeepers!
OPALINE: Loveable, huggable, supershy, sweet as pie…or is she?
And introducing CANDACE. Not just any babysitter—she’s a Teen Genius, thankyouverymuch!
What happens when four best friends find themselves splattered with mysterious purple goo during a routine sleepover? Iris, Cheri, Scarlet and Opaline are about to become…
THE ULTRA-VIOLETS!
Burning Blue by Paul Griffin
Dial | October 25, 2012 | 288 pages
Summary (Goodreads)
How far would you go for love, beauty, and jealousy?
When Nicole Castro, the most beautiful girl in her wealthy New Jersey high school, is splashed with acid on the left side of her perfect face, the whole world takes notice. But quiet loner Jay Nazarro does more than that–he decides to find out who did it. Jay understands how it feels to be treated like a freak, and he also has a secret: He’s a brilliant hacker. But the deeper he digs, the more danger he’s in–and the more he falls for Nicole. Too bad everyone is turning into a suspect, including Nicole herself.
Award-winning author Paul Griffin has written a high-stakes, soulful mystery about the meaning–and dangers–of love and beauty.
NetGalley
[amazon_link id=”0373210647″ target=”_blank” ]Wicked Kiss[/amazon_link] by Michelle Rowen
Harlequin Teen | February 26, 2013 | 304 pages
Summary (Goodreads)
MY KISS CAN KILL.
I used to be ordinary Samantha Day, but that’s changed. Now, after one dark kiss from a dangerous boy, I can steal someone’s soul…or their life. If I give in to the constant hunger inside me, I hurt anyone I kiss. If I don’t…I hurt myself.
Bishop is the one whose kiss I crave most, but if I kiss him, I’ll kill him. Then there’s another boy, one I can’t hurt. One whose kiss seems to miraculously quell my hunger. They’re both part of a team of angels and demons that’s joined forces in my city to fight a mysterious rising darkness, an evil that threatens everyone I know and love. I just wonder if I’ll be able to help Bishop-or if I’m just another part of the darkness he’s sworn to destroy….
NIGHTWATCHERS
When angels and demons must work together, something beyond evil is rising…
Hooked by Liz Fichera
Harlequin Teen | January 29, 2013 | 368 pages
Summary (Goodreads)
Get hooked on a girl named Fred…
HE said: Fred Oday is a girl? Why is a girl taking my best friends spot on the boy’s varsity golf team?
SHE said: Can I seriously do this? Can I join the boys’ team? Everyone will hate me – especially Ryan Berenger.
HE said: Coach expects me to partner with Fred on the green? That is crazy bad. Fred’s got to go – especially now that I can’t get her out of my head. So not happening.
SHE said: Ryan can be nice, when he’s not being a jerk. Like the time he carried my golf bag. But the girl from the rez and the spoiled rich boy from the suburbs? So not happening.
But there’s no denying that things are happening as the girl with the killer swing takes on the boy with the killer smile…
Lily Robbins, M.D. by Nancy Rue
Thomas Nelson | December 11, 2012 | 144 pages
Summary (Goodreads)
It’s Dr. Lily to the rescue
After witnessing a car accident and helping a little boy who was hurt, Lily embarks on a mission to become a “great doctor” or healthcare professional, and no one’s going to stop her. In this second book in the Lily Series, Lily starts watching medical shows on TV and checking out health books at the library. But that’s not all-she signs up for a body class for girls where she learns about all sorts of things, including getting her period and her changing body. As usual, Lily goes overboard, and it’s not long before she’s trying to change the Girlz Only Club into a health class-fitness plans, label reading, exercise, and more. However, her friends aren’t too thrilled about her newfound passion, and when they stop wanting to be around her, Lily has to choose. In the end, Lily learns and important lesson about friendship that she’ll never forget.
This bestselling, biblically based fiction series for girls-with a fresh new look and updated content-addresses social issues and coming-of-age topics, all with the spunk and humor of Lily Robbins as she fumbles her way through unfamiliar territory of growing up to be a lovely young woman. As readers come to love Lily and her stories, they’ll also benefit from the companion nonfiction books that will help them through their own growing pains.
The Body Book by Nancy Rue
Thomas Nelson | December 11, 2012 | 112 pages
Summary (Goodreads)
Here it is-a book that has all the “girl stuff” young girls have been dying to know about.
The transition from young girl to teenager makes the tween years a time of great change-especially in the body department! For all of the questions adolescence raises, this unique and creative book for girls ages 7-11 answers the common questions girls have during this often confusing and overwhelming stage in life. “The Body Book “gives girls the scoop on everything from body changes and cramps to diet and exercise in an inviting and conversational manner.
Filled with fun magazine-type quizzes and imaginative activities, “The Body Book” not only offers accurate, up-to-date information on personal issues tween girls experience but also shares it from a positive biblical perspective. Above all, the message that all of these changes are a God thing is highlighted on each and every page.
The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay
Atria Books | June 4, 2013 | 448 pages
Summary (Goodreads)
I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.
Full of rage and without a purpose, former pianist Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone discovering her past and to make the boy who took everything from her pay.
All 17 year-old Josh Bennett wants is to build furniture and be left alone, and everyone allows it because it’s easier to pretend he doesn’t exist. When your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.
Everyone except Nastya, a hot mess of a girl who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. The more he gets to know her, the more of a mystery she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he may ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding or if he even wants to.
The Sea of Tranquility is a slow-building, character-driven romance about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.
Please Note: This book contains mature content including profanity, drug/alcohol use, and sexual situations/language.
Edelweiss
[amazon_link id=”1442472677″ target=”_blank” ]Fifteenth Summer[/amazon_link] by Michelle Dalton
Simon Pulse | May 7, 2013 | 272 pages
Summary (Goodreads)
A Simon & Schuster eBook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every reader.
Not a real summary and I couldn’t find one anywhere!
What did you get this week?
Blog Tour | Come August, Come Freedom by Gigi Amateau
Please join me in welcoming a great author guest post from Gigi Amateau,author of Come August, Come Freedom: The Bellows, The Gallows, and The Black General Gabriel.
I will have a review of her new release soon! Stay tuned.
Fire and Water: The blacksmith and the laundress
How is Gabriel like fire and Nan like water?
I scribbled this question in my journal while revising Come August, Come Freedom, a historical novel inspired by the eighteenth-century Virginia blacksmith, Gabriel, who organized perhaps the largest slave rebellion in American history. Fire and water were the tools of Gabriel’s trade. He put those tools to use for the rebellion, too, making weapons and bullets at his forge. He recruited thousands of enslaved men and readied the countryside for war against Virginia in demand for freedom, but this is not only the story of a fiery plot by men. One woman helped Gabriel set his plan in place. His wife, Nanny.
That Gabriel had a wife named Nanny is recorded in trial testimony. The public historical record hints that theirs was a partnership of depth and trust. Women were present at social gatherings where Gabriel recruited soldiers – at fish frys, funerals, and worship – but recruits were forbidden to share information with their wives, excepting Nanny. During the autumn trials of 1800, an enslaved man named Daniel testified that it was Nanny who revealed to him the details of the plot. She relayed the day, time, and place and informed him of the strategy of setting fire to the city as a diversion.
There, the scant public record on Nanny and Gabriel ends. I drew from my own experience of romantic love to write theirs, believing that it is possible for two people to accept each other fully as equals, that love really is generous and kind, that in love independence can flourish and produce new levels of trust and self-revelation, and that in such love neither partner has to be perfect because – flaws and all – each knows they are loved. This is the love that I aspired to create for Gabriel and Nan.
They most likely lived apart, the Commonwealth didn’t recognize their marriage, and the outcome of their future together resided largely outside of their control. Despite the cruelty of their enslavement, with each draft the fictional Gabriel and Nan took new risks and grew stronger as a couple. Gabriel forging gifts for Nan – a spoon, a necklace, a garden hoe. Nanny sewing Gabriel an extra shirt. She, asking Gabriel to teach her to read. And, he too confessing that he is afraid.
Every blacksmith uses fire to transform iron; every smith reaches for water when the work is done. As I worked on the final revision, my question had changed to: How is Nan Gabriel’s water? I read the book from the beginning and there she was: the young laundress washing clothes in Shockoe Creek, showing Gabriel where to draw water for the forge and falling in the creek because she had set her eyes on him. Nan, there by the river, helping Gabriel set his path and sealing the heat of his vision into something tangible and real. The blacksmith and the laundress, fire and water.
[amazon_link id=”0763647926″ target=”_blank” ]Come August, Come Freedom[/amazon_link] by Gigi Amateau
Candlewick | September 11, 2012 | 240 pages
Summary (Goodreads)
An 1800 insurrection planned by a literate slave known as “Prosser’s Gabriel” inspires a historical novel following one extraordinary man’s life.
In a time of post-Revolutionary fervor in Richmond, Virginia, an imposing twenty-four-year-old slave named Gabriel, known for his courage and intellect, plotted a rebellion involving thousands of African- American freedom seekers armed with refashioned pitchforks and other implements of Gabriel’s blacksmith trade. The revolt would be thwarted by a confluence of fierce weather and human betrayal, but Gabriel retained his dignity to the end. History knows little of Gabriel’s early life. But here, author Gigi Amateau imagines a childhood shaped by a mother’s devotion, a father’s passion for liberation, and a friendship with a white master’s son who later proved cowardly and cruel. She gives vibrant life to Gabriel’s love for his wife-to-be, Nanny, a slave woman whose freedom he worked tirelessly, and futilely, to buy. Interwoven with original documents, this poignant, illuminating novel gives a personal face to a remarkable moment in history.
Connect with Gigi Amateau
Gigi Amateau is the author of Come August, Come Freedom, a work of historical fiction for young adults (Candlewick Press, September 2012), selected by SIBA as a Fall 2012 Okra Pick. She also wrote the young
adult novel, [amazon_link id=”0763630098″ target=”_blank” ]A Certain Strain of Peculiar[/amazon_link], a 2010 Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year and [amazon_link id=”0763645230″ target=”_blank” ]Chancey of the Maury River[/amazon_link], a William Allen White Masters List title for grades 3-5. Her debut novel, [amazon_link id=”0763633119″ target=”_blank” ]Claiming Georgia Tate[/amazon_link] was selected as a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age.
She was born in northeastern Mississippi and raised in Mechanicsville, Virginia, just outside of Richmond. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in Urban Studies and Planning, she worked for nearly twenty years in Richmond’s non-profit community. Gigi lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband and daughter.
Blog Tour | Dante’s Girl by Courtney Cole | 1st Chapter Sneak Peek!
[amazon_image id=”B008E409I2″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”large” ]Dante’s Girl (The Paradise Diaries)[/amazon_image]
[amazon_link id=”B008E409I2″ target=”_blank” ]Dante’s Girl (The Paradise Diaries)[/amazon_link] by Courtney Cole
Lakehouse Press | June 22, 2012 | 224 pages
$3.99 [amazon_link id=”B008E409I2″ target=”_blank” ]Amazon Kindle[/amazon_link]
Welcome to the Blog Tour for Dante’s Girl by Courtney Cole!
Today I have the honor of sharing the entire first chapter of this amazing contemporary romance with you.
Read it. Love it. Go[amazon_link id=”B008E409I2″ target=”_blank” ]buy[/amazon_link] yourself a copy!
My review will be posted on the 29th, so come back for that. It’s all glowing so don’t hesitate on buying it waiting for my official review!
Here’s my “overall” statement from my review.
OVERALL
An incredibly sweet contemporary romance set in the perfect paradise with the perfect Prince Charming ever.
Summary (Goodreads)
I have spent every summer since I was ten years old with my father in London. Every summer, since I was ten years old, has been uneventful and boring.
Until this year.And this year, after a freak volcanic eruption strands me far from home, I have learned these things:
1. I can make do with one outfit for three days before I buy new clothes.
2. If I hear the phrase, “You’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” even one more time, I might become a homicidal maniac.
3. I am horribly and embarrassingly allergic to jellyfish.
4. I am in love with Dante Giliberti, who just happens to be the beautiful, sophisticated son of the Prime Minister of a Mediterranean paradise.
5. See number four above. Because it brings with it a whole slew of problems and I’ve learned something from every one of them.Let’s start with the fact that Dante’s world is five light-years away from mine. He goes to black-tie functions and knows the Prime Minister of England on a first name basis. I was born and raised on a farm in Kansas and wear cut-off jeans paired with cowboy boots. See the difference?
But hearts don’t care about differences. Hearts want what they want. And mine just wants to be Dante’s girl.
My heart just might be crazy.
Chapter One
Below link will open to a pdf.
Read it and then let me know what you think!
Author
website | twitter | facebook | facebook fan page
Courtney Cole is a novelist who would eat mythology for breakfast if she could.
She has a degree in Business, but has since discovered that corporate America is not nearly as fun to live in as fictional worlds.
Every Last Kiss is her debut novel and she followed it with the rest of The Bloodstone Saga (Every Last Kiss, Fated, With My Last Breath and My Tattered Bonds).
Courtney lives in quiet suburbia, close to Lake Michigan, with her real-life Prince Charming, her ornery kids (there is a small chance that they get their orneriness from their mother) and a small domestic zoo.
Learn more about Courtney and her books at www.courtneycolewrites.com
Vote for Me! Independent Book Blogger Awards
I entered the Goodreads Independent Book Blogger Awards!
Please go vote for me!
Quick Update!
I didn’t get a chance to do my In My Mailbox post over the weekend so I’ll probably wait and do a combo post next weekend.
I also need to select my Demonglass winners! I’ll do my best to have those selected and posted early this week.
I spent the weekend relaxing. My ribs have been really sore these past few days and I’ve just been overall uncomfortable. The hubby was sick yesterday and with the time change it was a wonder I got 2 loads of laundry done. 🙂
I hope you all had great weekends and awesome IMM. I’ll be sure to check them out!