Saturday, August 27, 2011

In My Mailbox (1)

Hosted by The Story Siren, In My Mailbox is a weekly meme of what goodies we got to read during the week either thru mail, library, or ect..

I didn't get to much this week but I was very excited over this package.

I won via a Twitter Giveaway for an ARC of Jen Nadols latest..The Vision and she signed it as well as gave me alot of signed bookmarks. They are sooo pretty with her book The Mark on one side and The Vision on the other.

Also for review:

Drink Slay and Love by Sarah Beth Durst
Virtuosity by Jessica Martinez


So what did you get in your mailbox this week?

Write a Post and Help a Dog 2011


I am a HUGE dog lover and jumped at a chance to help my furry canines! Pedigree has decided to launch a Write a Post, Help a Dog Campaign. For those of you who missed the event last year in September 391 bloggers wrote about the program and with each post, Pedigree donated 20 pounds of its Healthy Longevity dog food to shelter animals.

For more information and to help out and join the blog hop with your posts please visit the site Write A Post-Help A Dog

How you can help in 2011:
Simply spread the word about Write a Post, Help a Dog 2011 and once again Pedigree will donate 20 pounds of food for each blog post. If you don’t have a blog feel free to tweet about the campaign or share on Facebook so your friends who do blog can participate. All bloggers are welcome even if you do not generally talk about pets on your blog. Its all about using Social Media for Social Good.

Here’s how it works:


•The Write a Post, Help a Dog program is aimed at raising awareness of the more then 4 million dogs that wind up in shelters and breed rescues each year. As well as to help get them all food (our goal is 10,000 lbs of food in the next two weeks) for the more than four million dogs that wind up in shelters and breed rescues each year.


•For each blog post mentioning the Pedigree Foundation from now until midnight ET on September 3, Pedigree will donate 20 pounds of its new dry Pedigree recipe food for dogs — its best recipe ever — to a shelter, because every dog deserves leading nutrition.


•Feel free to make your post more visually appealing by using either or both of the two images seen in this post.


•The Pedigree Foundation — a 501 (C)(3) nonprofit organization is committed to helping dogs by providing grants to shelters and rescues and encouraging dog adoption. This year the Foundation has already raised more than $376,570 against its goal of $1.5 million to carry out its work to fund grants that not only help shelters operate, but to further shelter innovations.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Review - Blood Memories by Barb Hendee

Blood Memories by Barb Hendee
Released: October 7, 2008
Publisher: Roc Trade
Age Group: Adult
Pages: 256 pages
Format: Paperback
Source: Bought
Author Site: Barb Hendee

Eleisha Clevon has the face of a teen angel, but she is no angel. Unlike most vampires, she doesn’t like to kill, but self-preservation comes first.

When an old friend destroys himself by walking into sunlight right in front of her, Eleisha is shocked. And what she finds afterwards points to how very sick of his existence her friend had become—piling drained corpses in the basement and keeping records of other vampires’ real names and addresses. That’s a problem.

Because now, there are policemen on the case: two very special humans with some gifts of their own. They know who Eleisha is, and, even more dangerous, what she is.
This story was just meh for me. I cant quite put my finger on what I didn't like about it. I feel like it could be that Eleisha is such a weakling that the other characters had to kind of tug her along to make the storyline work at all. About the only thing that I liked about her was her care giving for William. She was just "to" soft was my problem I guess because I am so used to kick ass no foul heriones that Eleisha really never stood a chance with me.

Although this was just NOT the book for me I have read rave reviews on other works that I may check out by Barb including her Noble Dead Series beginning with Dhampir.

A con-artist who poses as a vampire slayer learns that she is, in fact, a true vampire slayer-a dhampir-whose actions have attracted the unwanted attention of a trio of powerful vampires seeking her blood.

Follow Me Friday (1)


Welcome to Follow Friday hosted by Parajunkee and AlisonCanRead

This weeks Featured Bloggers - Jenni Elyse & Caught in the Pages

This weeks question:

Q. In books like the Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) series the paranormal creature in question "comes out of the closet" and makes itself known to the world. Which mythical creature do you wish would come out of the closet, for real?

A. Really tough question because I say unleash them all but if just one... Werewolves! I am an animal lover ya know? lol What would your answer be?




Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Review - Retribution (Dark-Hunter) by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Retribution (Dark-Hunter) by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Released: August 2, 2011
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Age Group: Adult
Pages: 432 pages
Format: Hardback
Source: Bought
Author Site: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Harm no human…

A hired gunslinger, William Jessup Brady lived his life with one foot in the grave. He believed that every life had a price. Until the day when he finally found a reason to live. In one single act of brutal betrayal, he lost everything, including his life. Brought back by a Greek goddess to be one of her Dark-Hunters, he gave his immortal soul for vengeance and swore he’d spend eternity protecting the humans he’d once considered prey.

Orphaned as a toddler, Abigail Yager was taken in by a family of vampires and raised on one belief—Dark-Hunters are the evil who prey on both their people and mankind, and they must all be destroyed. While protecting her adoptive race, she has spent her life eliminating the Dark-Hunters and training for the day when she meeting the man who killed her family: Jess Brady.
I must first confess this is the first book ever I have read from Sherrilyn and am guilty of only grabbing it after seeing the hot trailer for it. I saw that trailer and OMG just had to rush out and get Retribution! I am usually so very anal about needing to read books in order if they are in a series but was assured that I should be able to read these without worrying about that. So I took a chance and broke my "code" lol

I really enjoyed the story and Jess I could just melt for with his quirky attitude and humor. But Abigail....I really really wanted to knock her senseless when she first came into the picture. She was like a loose cannon killing anything that moved and had an air of hostility based soley on sombody elses word. I dont think I could just go on a killing rampage like that without having some kind of actual proof. In her defence though she really did do alot of changing and growing up in Retribution once she followed her heart and not her loose emotions and eventually her and Jess joined forces to right some wrongs that had been set into motion.

I did feel a bit overwhelmed during my reading at times because I felt like there were so many evil things and people involved that I couldn't keep anybody straight except for basically Jess and Abigail but as I mentioned already this was my first book of Sherrilyn's and already have done some research and gathered that alot of these creatures and persons were introduced and in previous stories and I just need to go back and start at the beginning which I FULLY intend on doing!

Hope you enjoy the trailer as much as I did!

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Review - Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Hate List by Jennifer Brown
Released: October 5, 2010
Publisher: Little Brown
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 432 pages
Format: Paperback
Source: Bought
Author Site:
Jennifer Brown

Five months ago, Valerie Leftman's boyfriend, Nick, opened fire on their school cafeteria. Shot trying to stop him, Valerie inadvertently saved the life of a classmate, but was implicated in the shootings because of the list she helped create. A list of people and things she and Nick hated. The list he used to pick his targets.

Now, after a summer of seclusion, Val is forced to confront her guilt as she returns to school to complete her senior year. Haunted by the memory of the boyfriend she still loves and navigating rocky relationships with her family, former friends and the girl whose life she saved, Val must come to grips with the tragedy that took place and her role in it, in order to make amends and move on with her life.

This was Valerie's story but I could so easily see my younger self and lots of other folks in her and Nick's places. Highschool is hard and I dont mean just academic wise. As Jennifer said lots of folks will believe this story is about a school shooting but it's not. The shooting is the end result of ignorance. Kinda like a pimple that has grown to its extreme and must burst to let out all its poisons.

Nick is portrayed as a villain because he was the one who shot everybody but when it really boils down to it he was just as much if not more so the biggest victim of them all. Dont think I am condoning what he did, but you cant ignore what drove him to it. He didnt just say ok today I think I am gonna shoot up some people.

Valerie is left to pick up the pieces not just of her life but of those around her. Even her own parents have awkward feelings towards her, though she was not the shooter but in fact a hero for stopping the shooting as quickly as it began and blocking one of the intended victims. Valerie's therapist keeps telling her to "See whats really there." I pondered on that statement for a long while during my reading and it made me reflect back to some of my own highschool experiences and the people I "thought" I hated. It's hard when your in a situation to be able to step outside of it and analyze it sometimes but this story made me think about that.

My thoughts are I believe Valerie to be a good person and feel the hate list was just her way of coping with her feelings, by writing them down. I dont think she would have ever done anything further with the list, whereas Nick felt he had to take action...had to remove what he "thought" were his problems.

Jennifer has done a remarkable job of expressing feelings and views from both sides of the equation here and I highly recommend that everybody not just young adults should read this book! If you've ever been bullied, pushed around, felt hatrid, or if you've even been a bully yourself, READ THIS BOOK.

Jennifer's second young adult book, Bitter End, about is available now.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Review - Past Midnight by Mara Purnhagen

Past Midnight by Mara Purnhagen
Released: September 01, 2010
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 224 pages
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher
Author Site: Mara Purnhagen
Let me set the record straight. My name is Charlotte Silver and I'm not one of those paranormal-obsessed freaks you see on TV…no, those would be my parents, who have their own ghost-hunting reality show. And while I'm usually roped into the behind-the-scenes work, it turns out that I haven't gone unnoticed. Something happened on my parents' research trip in Charleston—and now I'm being stalked by some truly frightening other beings. Trying to fit into a new school and keeping my parents' creepy occupation a secret from my friends—and potential boyfriends—is hard enough without having angry spirits whispering in my ear. All I ever wanted was to be normal, but with ghosts of my past and present colliding, now I just want to make it out of high school alive…
This story immediately caught my attention when I realized it was set in my homestate! Then Charlotte began her story and I quickly was drawn into her world. She is not so thrilled with her life, which is typically most any teenager, but with Charlotte's parents being famous and their work they are forever moving from place to place which leaves little room for Charlotte to make any lasting friendships or even join in any school activities until her older sister steps in and convinces them that Charlotte should have stability this year and be able to experience a normal senior year with friends and normal school activities and the whole nine yards. Charlotte soon begins making the friends and joining in like she always wanted but she hides her parents identity from everybody and soon realizes she is not the only one with secrets!

Though not really scary, as you would think when you think of ghost stories, it was still a short wonderful read with small doses of paranormal activity thrown in; just enough to keep it interesting.

Overall I enjoyed Past Midnight and got to know the characters well which is why I must say I really was dissapointed a bit with the ending. It felt rushed and kinda just left you hanging a bit wondering what happened to certain characters. I realize some of that was to get us ready for the next book but still I felt like I had been waiting on this big cresendo that just fizzled out in the last few pages.
The second book is 100 Candles which is out now as well. The third book, Beyond The Grave, will be out later this month I believe.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Review - A Touch Mortal by Leah Clifford

A Touch Mortal by Leah Clifford
Released: February 22, 2011
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 432 pages
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher
Author Site: Leah Clifford

Eden didn't expect Az.

Not his saunter down the beach toward her. Not his unbelievable pick up line. Not the instant, undeniable connection. And not his wings.

Yeah.

So long happily-ever-after.

Now trapped between life and death, cursed to spread chaos with her every touch, Eden could be the key in the eternal struggle between heaven and hell. All because she gave her heart to one of the Fallen, an angel cast out of heaven.

She may lose everything she ever had. She may be betrayed by those she loves most. But Eden will not be a pawn in anyone else's game. Her heart is her own.

And that's only the beginning of the end
.
From the beginning I feel the pain Eden is expressing and the all out loneliness. The feeling that nobody would care if you shriveled up and died and dying is just what she was contemplating when the two guys walk up to her on the beach that day. She certainly had not planned on falling in love!

Az (a fallen angel) is hiding his secret from Eden and Gabrielle (an angel) discovers that Eden has no path. She is what is known as a sider which is one who is bound to commit suicide and come back to live among the living to pass "touch".

Naturally angels and siders are not supposed to mix so things begin to get shady now and as Eden begins to think of life without Az she suddenly takes the suicide plunge she was about to take before and wakes up to a whole new world. A world where death is so totally NOT as she had imagined it!

I loved this book but it does get bogged down somewhat with alot of new beings and I found myself having to reread a few passages to understand who was what and why but once you get past those parts it really comes together for a nice finish.

A wonderful love story but yet so much more...

I cannot wait for the second book of the trilogy, A Touch Morbid, to come out! Its expected release is in Feb of 2012.