by Kay | Nov 12, 2011 | Weekly Feature |
On My Wishlist is a weekly event hosted by Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. It’s where I list all the books I desperately want but haven’t actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.
Over the past 2 years, I have signed up for The Story Siren’s Debut Author challenge. And yet, I never actually get around to reading debut authors. This year has been no exception and I doubt I’ll be finishing the challenge. There’s just no time! But before I start worrying about the 2012 debut author, her are some authors that made their debut back in 2010 who I am still excited to read!
Vinaya’s review of this book has made me desperate to get a copy. Read it
here.
This book is based around Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven. I can think of nothing greater!
I have two words for you: Eco Thriller. How awesome does that sound?
This sounded like a bog-standard historical YA novel until… Yellowstone. It’s set it Yellowstone. *wants*
What’s on your wishlist?
by Kay | Apr 2, 2011 | Weekly Feature |
On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. It’s where I list all the books I desperately want but haven’t actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.
So this week, I’ve been all about the contemporary YA titles. There are a ton of titles that are getting a whole lot of press on YA blogs – Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares, Anna and the French Kiss, and Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour amoung others – but I’d thought I’d highlight a few that you might not have heard about!
The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd
It’s Dade’s last summer at home. He has a crappy job at Food World, a “boyfriend” who won’t publicly acknowledge his existence (maybe because Pablo also has a girlfriend), and parents on the verge of a divorce. College is Dade’s shining beacon of possibility, a horizon to keep him from floating away.
Then he meets the mysterious Alex Kincaid. Falling in real love finally lets Dade come out of the closet—and, ironically, ignites a ruthless passion in Pablo. But just when true happiness has set in, tragedy shatters the dreamy curtain of summer, and Dade will use every ounce of strength he’s gained to break from his past and start fresh with the future.
“Fascinating and dreamy … The Vast Fields of Ordinary reads like the best kind of first novel — it’s packed with insights that might have been carried around for years, just waiting to come out.” – The New York Times Book Review
I’ll be honest, I’ve read some terrible things about this book. But my inner literary snob is just desperate to read a YA book reviewed by the NYT Book Review. Not to mention the fact I’m a bit behind on my wish to read more LGBT YA!
Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols
All Meg has ever wanted is to get away. Away from high school. Away from her backwater town. Away from her parents who seem determined to keep her imprisoned in their dead-end lives. But one crazy evening involving a dare and forbidden railroad tracks, she goes way too far… and almost doesn’t make it back.
John made a choice to stay. To enforce the rules. To serve and protect. He has nothing but contempt for what he sees as childish rebellion, and he wants to teach Meg a lesson she won’t soon forget. But Meg pushes him to the limit by questioning everything he learned at the police academy. And when he pushes back, demanding to know why she won’t be tied down, they will drive each other to the edge – and over…
Oh my, does this book sound fantastic or what? A girl on the edge meets the guy who has to pull her off of it – rather an inverted Rules of Attraction but without the latino flavour. I’ve heard fabulous things about Jennifer Echlos and really really want this one!
Adios to My Old Life by Caridad Ferrer
Does a seventeen-year-old from Miami have what it takes to be the next big Latin superstar? And does she really want it?
As a talented singer-guitarist with a dream of going pro, Alegría Montero is getting fed up with the endless, boring parade of quinceañeras and other family party gigs. She’s longing for something bigger. And Oye Mi Canto — a new reality TV show that’s searching for the next Latin superstar — is definitely that. Ali figures she’ll never make the cut, but auditioning seems like a good way to get her overprotective father to take her ambitions seriously.
To Ali’s complete shock, she passes her audition. Next thing she knows, she’s dealing with wardrobe fittings, cameras, reporters, vocal coaches, and websites designed by lovestruck fanboys. She’s also dealing with jealousy, malice, and sabotage among the contestants, all of which has her wondering: Is it really time to shoot for the stars and try to win the whole competition, or is it time to say “Cut!” and become a normal teenager again?
Speaking of latino flavour, this book has it is spades! First off, didn’t we all dream about becoming a pop superstar as a teen? That one day we’d wake up and be famous? Well, just imagine if that really happened – I don’t think it’d be that much fun turning into Britney Spears!
This was Caridad’s debut novel, published in 2006, and it won the Romance Writers of America’s 2007 RITA® for Best Contemporary Single Title Romance. Doesn’t that sound like a book you should read?
by Kay | Aug 7, 2010 | Weekly Feature |
On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by
Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. It’s where I list all the books I desperately want but haven’t actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.
I haven’t done an On My Wishlist in ages, and consequently have a ton of books I’d like to get my paws on. Lots of epic fantasy below!
In a near-future world, seraphs and demons fight a never-ending battle. But a new species of mage has arisen. Thorn St. Croix is no ordinary “neomage.” Nearly driven insane by her powers, she has escaped the confines of the Enclaves and now lives among humans. When her ex-husband is kidnapped, Thorn must risk revealing her true identity to save him.
Trained from childhood to a life of servitude and espionage, Phedre Delaunay serves her master, Anafiel, as a courtesan and spy, ferreting out the dangerous secrets of the noble houses of Terre d’Ange. When she uncovers a treasonous conspiracy, however, her life takes on a new and deadly purpose. Set in a world reminiscent of late medieval and early Renaissance Europe, Carey’s first novel portrays a society based upon political and sexual intrigue.
While teenage werewolf Kalix MacRinnalch is being pursued through the streets of London by murderous hunters, her sister, the Werewolf Enchantress, is busy designing clothes for the Fire Queen. Meanwhile, in the Scottish Highlands, the MacRinnalch Clan is plotting and feuding after the head of the clan suddenly dies intestate. As the court intrigue threatens to blow up into all-out civil war, the competing factions determine that Kalix is the swing vote necessary to assume leadership of the clan. Unfortunately, Kalix isn’t really into clan politics – laudanum’s more her thing. Even more unfortunately, Kalix is the reason the head of the clan ended up dead, which is why she’s now on the l am in London. . .
Harper Blaine was your average small-time P.I. until a two-bit perp’s savage assault left her dead for two minutes. When she comes to in the hospital, she sees things that can only be described as weird-shapes emerging from a foggy grey mist, snarling teeth, creatures roaring. But Harper’s not crazy. Her “death” has made her a Greywalker- able to move between the human world and the mysterious cross-over zone where things that go bump in the night exist. And her new gift is about to drag her into that strange new realm-whether she likes it or not.
The first title in a new fantasy series introduces the kingdom of Skala, where an usurper king claimed his young half-sister’s throne. To be born female into the royal line had become a death sentence. But as the king’s nephew, his sister’s only child, grows into manhood, it is unknown to both that the boy is actually the princess’s daughter, given male form by a dark magic to protect her until she can claim her rightful destiny.
Anluan has been crippled since childhood, part of a curse that has besieged his family and his home of Whistling Tor. But when the young scribe Caitrin is retained to sort through family documents, she brings about unexpected changes in the household, casting a hopeful light against the despairing shadows. But to truly free Anluan’s burdened soul, Caitrin must unravel the web of sorcery woven by his ancestors before it claims his life—and their love…
by Kay | May 8, 2010 | Weekly Feature |
On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. It’s where I list all the books I desperately want but haven’t actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.
In case you hadn’t noticed, angels are the new vampires on the fantasy block. They can get their smite on like none other, and have serious daddy issues. But more importantly, getting them into bed? Biblical. Personally, I give all the credit to Castiel.
Archangel (Samaria, #1) by Sharon Shinn
Sharon Shinn was on to angels in 1996, and apparently this is the ultimate angel!fantasy book ever. I wish I’d just bought it when I saw it at Forbidden Planet (they are out now) as it is quite hard to find in the UK!
And so it came to pass…
Through science, faith and force of will, the Harmonics carved out for themselves a society that they conceived of as perfect. Diverse peoples held together by respect for each other and the prospect of swift punishment if they disobeyed their laws. Fertile land that embraced a variety of climates and seasons. Angels to guard the mortals and mystics to guard the forbidden knowledge. Jehovah to watch over them all…
Generations later, the armed starship Jehovah stills looms over the planet of Samaria, programmed to unleash its arsenal if peace is not sustained. But an age of corruption has come to the land, threatening that peace and placing the Samarians in grave danger. Their only hope lies in the crowning of a new Archangel. The oracles have chosen for this honor the angel named Gabriel, and further decreed that he must first wed a mortal woman named Rachel.
It is his destiny and hers. And Gabriel is certain that she will greet the news of her betrothal with enthusiasm, and a devotion to duty equal to his own.
Rachel, however, has other ideas…
Heavenly by Jennifer Laurens
Despite the Photoshop101!cover, and the crazy grammar in the summary… I really want this book! Realistic with a bit of a Romeo-and-Juliet love story.
I met someone who changed everything. Matthias. My autistic sister’s guardian angel. Honest. Inspiring. Funny. Hot. And immortal.
That was the problem.
What could I do? I did what any other girl would do – I fell in love with him.
Zoe’s sister darts in front of cars. Her brother’s a pothead. Her parents are so overwhelmed; they don’t see Zoe lost in her broken life. Zoe escapes the only way she knows how: partying. Matthias, a guardian sent from Heaven, watches over Zoe’s autistic sister. After Zoe is convinced he’s legit, angel and lost girl come together in a love that changes destiny. But Heaven on Earth can’t last forever.
Angelology by Danielle Trussoni
Even if you aren’t a fantasy fan, I am pretty sure you’ve heard of this one. It is everywhere. Trussoni is being dubbed the new Dan Brown (ick), and despite that I really want to read this book!
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them.
– Genesis 6:5
Sister Evangeline was just a girl when her father entrusted her to the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in upstate New York. Now, at twenty-three, her discovery of a 1943 letter from the famous philanthropist Abigail Rockefeller to the late mother superior of Saint Rose Convent plunges Evangeline into a secret history that stretches back a thousand years: an ancient conflict between the Society of Angelologists and the monstrously beautiful descendants of angels and humans, the Nephilim.
For the secrets these letters guard are desperately coveted by the once-powerful Nephilim, who aim to perpetuate war, subvert the good in humanity, and dominate mankind. Generations of angelologists have devoted their lives to stopping them, and their shared mission, which Evangeline has long been destined to join, reaches from her bucolic abbey on the Hudson to the apex of insular wealth in New York, to the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris and the mountains of Bulgaria.
Rich in history, full of mesmerizing characters, and wondrously conceived, Angelology blends biblical lore, the myth of Orpheus and the Miltonic visions of Paradise Lost into a riveting tale of ordinary people engaged in a battle that will determine the fate of the world.
by Kay | Apr 3, 2010 | Weekly Feature |
On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. It’s where I list all the books I desperately want but haven’t actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.
Deadly Little Secret (Touch, #1) by Laurie Faria Stolarz
I have had this book on my wishlist for months – it looks like a really enjoyable read. Not quite as paranormal as most of the PNRYA out there – but that should make for a good change!
Some secrets shouldn’t be kept…
Up until three months ago, everything in sixteen-year-old Camelia’s life had been fairly ordinary: decent grades; an okay relationship with her parents; and a pretty cool part-time job at the art studio downtown. But when Ben, the mysterious new guy, starts junior year at her high school, Camelia’s life becomes anything but ordinary.
Rumored to be somehow responsible for his ex-girlfriend’s accidental death, Ben is immediately ostracized by everyone on campus. Except for Camelia. She’s reluctant to believe the rumors, even when her friends try to convince her otherwise. She’s inexplicably drawn to Ben…and to his touch. But soon, Camelia is receiving eerie phone calls and strange packages with threatening notes. Ben insists she is in danger, and that he can help–but can he be trusted? She knows he’s hiding something… but he’s not the only one with a secret.
From the best-selling author of Blue is for Nightmares comes a story of paranormal romance that’s sure to be a thrilling and chilling teen favorite.
Ghostland (Ghostland World, #1) by Jory Strong
I’ll admit it – my original attraction to this novel was superficial. But please, with that kick-ass cover, how could it not have been? But then I read a pretty solid review for it over at DearAuthor – turns out it has more going for it than just a pretty face!
In a post-Apocalyptic world where supernaturals have emerged from hiding, wealthy humans delight in decadence while the religious gain power through temptation. For the masses, fear reigns from birth to death, and the afterlife holds beings that only the bravest can summon—or dare to desire…
Taken from her home and family, shamaness Aisling McConaughey has no choice except to enter the “ghostlands” in order to learn the fate of a wealthy man’s mistress. But there is always a price to pay for the use of her power. To save the woman’s life she must summon the Djinn prince Zurael en Caym—and yield to his savage, sensual rage.
Zurael fears nothing except being called and bound to a human’s will. He intends to kill Aisling after she’s served as bait to find an enemy in possession of an ancient tablet. But the more he tastes of her innocent spirit, the more he’ll use his fiery touch and seductive whispers to keep her hungry for his mercy—even as they weave an erotic spell that he cannot escape…
Powerful forces threaten both their worlds, leaving Aisling and Zurael with an unbearable choice. Follow their hearts…or stay true to their honor and risk losing an eternity of pleasure
