Weekly Recap – July 10, 2016

I hope everyone is having a wonder Sunday. Every Sunday I will be linking my weekly recap to The Sunday Post, Talk of the Town, Saturday Situation, and Stacking the Shelves! These are amazing blogs, so please skip over and show them some love.

 

The last month in blogging and booktubing has been very slow. I apologize for not being around much but life has managed to get in the way. All of my scheduled post have been posted and I haven’t found the time to write anything new. I have tons of reviews that are partly started, but never seem to get finished

With school out for the summer I have 4 teenagers at home that have difficulty finding something to occupy their time. Over the next couple of weeks they will be dwindling off to various camps for the summer, which should leave me with more free time.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time looking for employment. Now that the kids are older I figured it was time to get out and spread my wings in the real world…even if it is only part time. I love my children, but being stuck in the house with 4 teenagers that think they all know better is making me lose my sanity. My blog and booktube channel have been a great way to express myself and indulge in something I love, but now that I have less time to do it I need something that takes me out of the house.

Over the last couple of weeks…

• AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Crude by J.L. Davis
• Top 5 Best Book Covers – June 2016
• Waiting on Wednesday (#4) – June 15, 2016
• YOU CHOOSE (#4) – June 16, 2016
• Friday Finds – June 17, 2016
• Crisanta Knight: Protagonist Bound by Geanna Culbertson (BOOK REVIEW)
• BOOK REVIEW: These Vicious Masks by Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas
• Bullet Riddled: The First S.W.A.T. Officer Inside Columbine…and Beyond by Grant M. Whitus and Thom Vines (AUDIOBOOK REVIEW)
• Waiting on Wednesday (#5) – June 22, 2016
• Emma Brewster:Too Hot To Handle by Mary Moriarty (BOOK REVIEW)
• YOU CHOOSE (#5) – June 23, 2016
• Friday Finds – June 24, 2016
• Murder in “Utopia” by Bryan Perkins (Audiobook Review)
• Suicide Lake by Ashley Fontainne (AUDIOBOOK REVIEW)
• SURVIVE! Addison’s guide to the zombie apocalypse by Dana Burkey (AUDIOBOOK REVIEW)
• Waiting on Wednesday (#6) – June 29, 2016
• Wraith by Joe Hill (GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW)
• Friday Finds – July 7, 2016
• Addicted to Love by Kathleen Murray (BOOK REVIEW)

 

WHAT AM I READING?

     

I’m reading a lot at the same time right now. I like everything that I’m reading, but they are just not holding my attention. I am reading A Clash of Kings for #ReadASOIAF for the month of July. I have The Girls and The Assassin Game on my kindle…I read them at night depending on the mood I am in. I am also reading The Second Summer of the Sisterhood  for #Pantsalong.

What will I be reading next?

I’m not completely sure what I’ll be reading next. I will be reading the third book in the traveling pants series, but other then that I just might still be reading my current reads.

BOOK HAUL

           

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. If you have a weekly post, please leave it down below so I can check it out.

Friday Finds – July 7, 2016

FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library. Hosted by Babs @Babs Book Bistro

All pictures are linked to goodreads

       

Have you found anything interesting this week? Let me know in the comments and please leave your Friday Finds if you have one.

Waiting on Wednesday (#6) – June 29, 2016

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill @Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

 

 

 

 Paraffin, Vermont, is known the world over as home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory. But behind the sunny retail space bursting with overwhelming scents and homemade fudge, seventeen-year-old Poppy Palladino discovers something dark and unsettling: a back room filled with dozens of startlingly life-like wax sculptures, crafted by one very strange old lady. Poppy hightails it home, only to be shocked when one of the figures—a teenage boy who doesn’t seem to know what he is—jumps naked and screaming out of the trunk of her car. She tries to return him to the candle factory, but before she can, a fire destroys the mysterious workshop—and the old woman is nowhere to be seen.

With the help of the wax boy, who answers to the name Dud, Poppy resolves to find out who was behind the fire. But in the course of her investigation, she discovers that things in Paraffin aren’t always as they seem, that the Grosholtz Candle Factory isn’t as pure as its reputation—and that some of the townspeople she’s known her entire life may not be as human as they once were. In fact, they’re starting to look a little . . . waxy. Can Poppy and Dud extinguish the evil that’s taking hold of their town before it’s too late?

 

RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 2, 2016

 

Why am I excited?

A wax factory with wax people…sounds like an interesting mystery to me. What does Poppy find out? And what is this evil that is taking over the town? The premises of this story sounds like it is going to reach out and grab you and not let you go.

Is this book on your TBR? What new release are you anticipating?

Friday Finds – June 24, 2016

FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library. Hosted by Babs @Babs Book Bistro

All pictures are linked to goodreads

 

   

This week I have found four books that are completely different. Bird Box by Josh Malerman is creepy and dark. The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George…a book about books. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray is a magical historical fiction. And Glass Town by Steven Savile sounds like a wonderful dark and thrilling story.

 

Have you found anything interesting this week? Let me know in the comments and please leave your Friday Finds if you have one.

YOU CHOOSE (#5) – June 23, 2016

YOU CHOOSE is a weekly meme. Every week (starting on Thursdays) I will be posting 3 books that are on my TBR list that I want to read and YOU CHOOSE which one is the winner. These can be books in any format, on your own shelf, or borrow from a friend or library.

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The Adventures of Archibald and Jockabeb – In the Forest by Art Collins

The first book in the series begins when Archibald and Jockabeb sneak out of their house at midnight to hunt for a secret cave that was marked on an old map they’d found earlier in the day. The two brothers, who are twelve and eleven, end up finding and entering the secluded cave hidden deep within an eerie forest. After the boys descend a stone staircase, they discover a subterranean lake where an underwater dragon lives. The underwater dragon is actually a young Indian brave, Haktu, who many years before was transformed into the dragon by four evil warriors of the Black Raven Tribe. After Archibald repeats the magic words, “Nito, Vito, Samu,” Haktu is returned to his natural body. The three young boys then run for their lives when they are chased by flying wolf-crows that are part snarling wolf and part giant black crow.

This initial encounter begins Archibald’s and Jockabeb’s first amazing adventure—an incredible adventure that spans the next year. During that time, the two brothers become reacquainted with Haktu after they along with their younger sister, Tess, find his lost pony, Uno. Still pursued by the deadly wolf-crows, the boys learn more about Haktu’s family, including the details of how he was captured by the Black Raven warriors. When Haktu finally says good-bye, he gives Archibald a magic blue feather. The blue feather plays an important role in subsequent books as Archibald and Jockabeb find themselves in one life-threatening predicament after another.

While the settings change from book to book, the two brothers always meet fascinating characters—some good, and some evil; some human, and some anything but; some from this world, and some otherworldly beyond belief. As the boys grow older and travel across the United States, and to faraway places like the Amazon, the Caribbean, the Arctic, and the Orient, they learn the true meaning of friendship. The reader also learns interesting facts about the various places Archibald and Jockabeb visit, while witnessing the classic battle between the forces of good and evil play out in different ways.

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The Girls by Emma Cline

Girls—their vulnerability, strength, and passion to belong—are at the heart of this stunning first novel for readers of Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides and Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence, and to that moment in a girl’s life when everything can go horribly wrong.

Emma Cline’s remarkable debut novel is gorgeously written and spellbinding, with razor-sharp precision and startling psychological insight. The Girls is a brilliant work of fiction—and an indelible portrait of girls, and of the women they become.

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The Neverland Wars by Audrey Greathouse

Magic can do a lot—give you flight, show you mermaids, help you taste the stars, and… solve the budget crisis? That’s what the grown-ups will do with it if they ever make it to Neverland to steal its magic and bring their children home.
However, Gwen doesn’t know this. She’s just a sixteen-year-old girl with a place on the debate team and a powerful crush on Jay, the soon-to-be homecoming king. She doesn’t know her little sister could actually run away with Peter Pan, or that she might have to chase after her to bring her home safe. Gwen will find out though—and when she does, she’ll discover she’s in the middle of a looming war between Neverland and reality.
She’ll be out of place as a teenager in Neverland, but she won’t be the only one. Peter Pan’s constant treks back to the mainland have slowly aged him into adolescence as well. Soon, Gwen will have to decide whether she’s going to join impish, playful Peter in his fight for eternal youth… or if she’s going to scramble back to reality in time for the homecoming dance.

Waiting on Wednesday (#5) – June 22, 2016

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill @Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

 

 

 

 Lana used to know what was real.

That was before when her life was small and quiet.
Her golden step-brother, Ben, was alive, she could only dream about bonfiring with the populars, their wooded island home was idyllic, she could tell the truth from lies, and Ben’s childhood stories were firmly in her imagination.

Then came after.

After has Lana boldly kissing her crush, jumping into the water from too high up, and living with nerve and mischief. But after also has horrors, deaths that only make sense in fairy tales, and terrors from a past Lana thought long forgotten: Love, blood, and murder.

 

RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 2, 2016

 

Why am I excited?

This sounded like an interesting story…leaving me wanting to know more. What happened to Lana? Reviews are calling it creepy and disturbing. HELL YEAH!

 

Is this book on your TBR? What new release are you anticipating?

Friday Finds – June 17, 2016

FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library. Hosted by Babs @Babs Book Bistro

All pictures are linked to goodreads

 

 

Emmy-winning actress Veronica Walsh is accustomed to role-playing. Over her thirty-two year career on the soap opera Days and Nights, her character has been a businesswoman, wife (multiple times), mother, prison inmate and fugitive. None of that prepared Veronica for the role of real-life sleuth.

When Veronica cannot land a new part after the soap’s cancellation, she returns to her Adirondack hometown for what she hopes is a temporary visit. No sooner does she arrive than Veronica finds herself in a swirl of turmoil, with her neighbor at the center. In the span of a few hours, powerful businesswoman Anna Langdon extends an invitation to Veronica to discuss a business proposal, ends a short romance with Veronica’s high school beau, threatens to evict one of her retail tenants and thwarts a deal to build a mall on local farmland. Veronica receives an unexpected welcome-home present when she finds Anna’s body the next morning, the cast-iron skillet used to kill her lying at her feet. Soon Veronica is chasing leads with the help of friend Mark Burke and her former co-star Alex Shelby.

Twists straight from a soap script, including two leading men vying for her attention, entangle Veronica as she gathers clues. Will Veronica solve the case, or will the killer be as elusive as an acting job? And will she play the heroine or the damsel in distress?

Have you found anything interesting this week? Let me know in the comments and please leave your Friday Finds if you have one.

YOU CHOOSE (#4) – June 16, 2016

 YOU CHOOSE is a weekly meme. Every week (starting on Thursdays) I will be posting 3 books that are on my TBR list that I want to read and YOU CHOOSE which one is the winner. These can be books in any format, on your own shelf, or borrow from a friend or library.

All pictures are linked to goodreads

 

 

 

The Island of the Dolls is a strange and eerie tourist destination in Mexico, where hundreds of decomposing dolls hang from trees like grisly Christmas ornaments. On a trip to the island, Joyce Parker’s daughter falls in love with a beautiful but sinister doll. Soon after, she starts developing strange mannerisms that concerns Joyce. Her research into the doll’s past reveals a dark history, and the curse of a lonely child spirit.

 

 

 

 

 

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 The world can be a very strange place in general and when you open the pages of this true crime anthology you will quickly learn that the criminal world specifically can be as bizarre as it is dangerous. In the following book, you will be captivated by mysterious missing person cases that defy all logic and a couple cases of murderous mistaken identity. Follow along as detectives conduct criminal investigations in order to solve cases that were once believed to be unsolvable. Every one of the crime cases chronicled in the pages of this book are as strange and disturbing as the next.

The twelve true crime stories in this book will keep you riveted as you turn the pages, but they will probably also leave you with more questions than answers. For instance, you will be left pondering how two brothers from the same family could disappear with no trace in similar circumstances over ten years apart. You will also wonder how two women with the same first and last names, but with no personal connections, could be murdered within the same week in the same city. The examination of a number of true crime murder cases that went cold, but were later solved through scientific advances, will also keep you intrigued and reading.

Open the pages of this book, if you dare, to read some of the most bizarre cases of disappearances, mistaken identity, and true murder. Some of the cases will disturb and anger you, but make no mistake, you will want to keep reading!

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 Sixteen-year-old Claire Young is tormented by a recurring, prophetic nightmare and visitations from gruesome, mutilated ghosts. She’s convinced the apparitions intend to harm her widowed father, but there’s little she can do locked away in Saint Thomas Psychiatric Hospital. Her situation is hopeless until a mysterious priest delivers the name of a man who may be the only one willing to help. Claire launches a daring scheme that leads her and her best friend to a former paranormal investigator.

But the matter is complicated by Claire’s own father. Convinced his daughter is schizophrenic, he’ll send Claire back to Saint Thomas permanently if he discovers she’s still clinging to her delusions. Claire and her friends must tread lightly to complete the investigation, but amid bizarre twists and chilling encounters, she’ll discover her home’s basement is hiding something far more sinister than just ghosts.

 

 

My 3 picks for this week are free kindle ebooks that I have. All of them are fairly short. What do you think I should start with?

 

 

 

 

Waiting on Wednesday (#4) – June 15, 2016

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill @Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

 

 

 

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a new play by Jack Thorne, is the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. It will receive its world premiere in London’s West End on 30th July 2016

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes darkness comes from unexpected places.

 

RELEASE DATE: JULY 31, 2016

 

Why am I excited?

I love Harry Potter…that is why! I am interested in how this is put together. Can something be pulled off that Harry Potter fans will enjoy. And what does Harry’s life consist of after the one chapter information dump in the last book.

 

Is this book on your TBR? What new release are you anticipating?

Top 5 Best Book Covers – June 2016

Top 5 Best Book Covers is hosted @Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. It is a chance to showcase 5 of your favorite book covers from the current month.

There’s no such thing as safe in a city at war, a city overrun with monsters. In this dark urban fantasy from author Victoria Schwab, a young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains—and friends or enemies—with the future of their home at stake. The first of two books.

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.

I am really looking forward in reading this book. Heros, villains, and monsters…sounds so interesting. But I have to say, I love this cover. This is the paperback copy and I love it much more than the hardback copy. 

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Eleven years ago, six kindergarteners went missing without a trace. After all that time, the people left behind moved on, or tried to.

Until today. Today five of those kids return. They’re sixteen, and they are . . . fine. Scarlett comes home and finds a mom she barely recognizes, and doesn’t really recognize the person she’s supposed to be, either. But she thinks she remembers Lucas. Lucas remembers Scarlett, too, except they’re entirely unable to recall where they’ve been or what happened to them. Neither of them remember the sixth victim, Max. He doesn’t come back. Everyone wants answers. Most of all Max’s sister Avery, who needs to find her brother–dead or alive–and isn’t buying this whole memory-loss story.

There is something very quiet and creepy about this cover. I haven’t added it to my TBR yet but every time I see it I tend to check it out…so, who knows, I just might end up reading it after all. 

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They call me Rage.
My real name is like a shadow, always close behind, but never quite able to catch up.
I fly under the radar because no one ever suspects I’m capable of the kind of brutal violence I commit each and every day.
You see, I’m a girl. I’m nineteen.
And I’m a killer.
This life is all I know. It’s all I want to know. It keeps the s**t buried that I need kept buried. It allows me to live without thinking too much.
Without dwelling on the past.
Until him.
It all changes when an ordinary boy becomes my next target.
And my first love.
I have to choose.
The only life I’ve ever known has to die, or he does.
Either way, I’ll be the one pulling the trigger…

All the Rage is a STANDALONE.

The description of this book sounds interesting, but the cover is eye catching.

****

A prehistoric fantasy—with allusions to Pride and Prejudice.

Hunting, gathering, and keeping his family safe—that’s the life seventeen-year-old Kol knows. Then bold, enigmatic Mya arrives from the south with her family, and Kol is captivated. He wants her to like and trust him, but any hopes of impressing her are ruined when he makes a careless—and nearly grave—mistake. However, there’s something more to Mya’s cool disdain…a history wrought with loss that comes to light when another clan arrives. With them is Lo, an enemy from Mya’s past who Mya swears has ulterior motives.

As Kol gets to know Lo, tensions between Mya and Lo escalate until violence erupts. Faced with shattering losses, Kol is forced to question every person he’s trusted. One thing is for sure: this was a war that Mya or Lo—Kol doesn’t know which—had been planning all along.

I’m not sure I’ll ever read this book, but the cover is stunning

****

Twenty-year-old Finley Montgomery is rarely alone. Visited by people whom others can’t see and haunted by prophetic dreams, she has never been able to control or understand the things that happen to her. When Finley’s abilities start to become too strong for her to handle – and even the roar of her motorcycle or another dazzling tattoo can’t drown out the voices – she turns to the only person she knows who can help her: her grandmother Eloise Montgomery, a renowned psychic living in The Hollows, New York.

Merri Gleason is a woman at the end of her tether after a ten-month-long search for her missing daughter, Abbey. With almost every hope exhausted, she resorts to hiring Jones Cooper, a detective who sometimes works with psychic Eloise Montgomery. Merri’s not a believer, but she’s just desperate enough to go down that road, praying that she’s not too late. Time, she knows, is running out.

As a harsh white winter moves into The Hollows, Finley and Eloise are drawn into the investigation, which proves to have much more at stake than even the fate of a missing girl. As Finley digs deeper into the town and its endless layers, she is forced to examine the past, even as she tries to look into the future. Only one thing is clear: The Hollows gets what it wants, no matter what.

Even though there is not a lot going on with this cover, I still love staring at it. I think I like the looks of the black and white together. This could be the same reason I liked Ivory and Bone, except this one is more spooky. 

 

These are my beautiful picks for June. I can’t say that I will get to them all but they are nice to look at. Do you have a favorite?