In My Mailbox #10

Hosted by The Story Siren!

I know, it's been months since I did my last IMM, and I have seriously no idea how many books I've received since then!
But here's the physical copies I received this week! :)

bought

I received discount coupon (because of my birthday) to cdon.com, and I used it to buy Switched!

And Spell Bound was something I just had to buy, of course.

won

I actually won something! AWESOME!!
So, this was my first win ever, and I was lucky enough to win books worth up to $25,00 from The Book Depository in The Book Garden's 1.000 Followers Giveaway!

So I chose The Gathering and Pandemonium, yay! Can't wait to read!!

Thanks again, Birgit!

Quick update

First of all, sorry I've been so absent lately! I'm been pretty IRL, since our landlord just told us he's selling the apartment we rented 4 years ago, so we've been running around town looking for a new place to live. And we're actually thinking of buying own home, yay! :)
So this is kind of a good news, since otherwise we would never thought about buying own apartment.

Today I've been especially lazy (shame on me!) because yesterday I received my copy of Spell Bound! So I've been lying on the sofa and reading, nearly finished!

And.. I'm making some little changes to my layout, so don't freak out if there's navigation and pages missing at some point, since I decided it's much easier, and nicer, to write my own HTML so I get the changes I want! :)

So there will be some updates on the layout, and hopefully more reviews coming up soon!

Waiting on Wednesday #19

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating!

City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare

Expected publication May 8th 2012


Can the lost be reclaimed? What price is too high to pay for love? Who can be trusted when sin and salvation collide?

Love. Blood. Betrayal. Revenge.

Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series.

WWW Wednesday #21

By Should be Reading!

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
  
• What did you recently finish reading?
  
• What do you think you’ll read next?
  

What are you currently reading?

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

I again have 4 books unfinished, but this is something I'm currently concentrating on most of the time.

What did you recently finish reading?

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

It took some time to finish this, but this was quite good read!

What do you think you'll read next?

Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin #1) by R.L. LaFevers

This will be my next read, I swear it.

Teaser Tuesdays #18

By Should Be Reading!

• Grab your current read
  
• Open to a random page
  
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  
• Be careful not to include spoilers!
  
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"And you?" I ask. "What did you do?"
For a moment, his eyes stare through me. Then he blinks.

"Nothing. It's ridiculous," he says. "I don't belong on those tapes. Hannah just wanted an excuse to kill herself."

I let the rock drop onto the sidewalk.
It was either that or smash it in his face right there.

p. 58, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Teaser Tuesdays post, or share your ‘teasers’ in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks! :)

Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

Published: May 27th 2010 (first published May 1st 2010)
Publisher: Definitions
Format : Paperback
Pages: 418
Series: -
Source : Borrowed
Amazon | Book Depository

She is pretty and talented - sweet sixteen and never been kissed.

He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love.

But... they are brother and sister.

Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings.
Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives — and the way they understand each other so completely — has also also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be.

So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love.

Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right.

As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.

*MAY CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS*
Oh my gosh. I just finished this book and I need to breath in a brown paper bag probably rest of the day, at least. And I'm still crying a little.

I have to admit, I was kind of iffy with the synopsis, my mind went instantly to some toothless hillbilly- action, but boy, was I wrong.
As the synopsis already mentioned, this is a story of a boy and a girl falling in love. Too bad they're brother and sister. They have sh*tty mother, who doesn't even deserve to be called that. She's partying like a teenager and forgets that she even has kids.
That's why Maya and Lochan take care of their siblings and act like they're parents. They have their own little universe to take care of, so it's no wonder they basically act like mother and father.

Throughout the story I just waited for the moment when their sh*tty mum is drunk enough and tells them that Lochan is adopted. I waited and waited, but no such luck. (Something I hoped for, that way they would've had even a little chance to be together!) So we just have to stand by and wait for the tragedy to happen. Believe me, you will need a box of tissues, I was bawling my eyes out in the end.
This book leaves you sobbing, heartbroken and speechless. It's really hard to form real sentences right now, all I can think about is "holy s**t" and "that's rough". So forgive me, if here's some incoherent stuff flying around!

This is so beautifully written love story that you forget it's about incest. In reality, I probably wouldn't enjoy if my neighbor told about something like this, but that's the beauty. You don't have to support incest to enjoy this book.

But as said, there's no happy ending, no matter how much you yell at the book (been there, done that), so finish this book while lying in bed, that way it's easier to curl up into fetal position.

+ ½

Waiting on Wednesday #18

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Where It Began by Ann Redisch Stampler

Expected publication March 6th 2012


Sometimes the end is just the beginning.

Gabby lived under the radar until her makeover. Way under. But when she started her senior year as a blonder, better-dressed version of herself, she struck gold: Billy Nash believed she was a the flawless girl she was pretending to be. The next eight months with Billy were bliss...Until the night Gabby woke up on the ground next to the remains of his BMW without a single memory of how she got there.

And Billy's nowhere to be found.

All Gabby wants is to make everything perfect again. But getting her life back isn't difficult, it's impossible. Because nothing is the same, and Gabby's beginning to realize she's missed more than a few danger signs along the way.

It's time for Gabby to face the truth, even if it means everything changes.

Especially if it means everything changes.

Teaser Tuesdays #17

Meme by Should Be Reading!
I'm again visiting my little sister, without proper internet connection, so don't worry if it seems like I've vanished..!

*Grab your current read
*Open to a random page
*Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
*Be careful not to include spoilers!
*Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

It feels strange, lying here in Lochan's bed with him sleeping beside me.
Wila used to climb into bed with me whenever she had nightmares - in the morning I'd wake up to find her small body pressed against mine.

This is Lochan though: my brother, my protector. Seeing his arm slung so casualy across me makes me smile - he would be very quick to remove it if he woke.

p. 77, Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT with either the link to your own Teaser Tuesdays post, or share your ‘teasers’ in a comment here (if you don’t have a blog). Thanks! :)

Guest Author: Audrey Hart

I'm so happy to introduce my very first guest author, lovely Audrey, the author of The Dig (Zoe and Zeus trilogy) (read my review here!)!

I was so happy, when Audrey agreed to tell us the story behind Zoe and Zeus, something I always want to know when I read a great book! :) So, here you go!

The story behind Zoe and Zeus trilogy by Audrey Hart

Last year, I was lucky to visit the Minoan ruins in Crete. I was in awe of everything. Imagine, people lived here 4000 years ago. And I became so interested in the people who spend their lives hunting down these ruins.

One afternoon, my iPhone buzzed and slipped out of my pocket. I gasped, thinking it had fallen between the cracks. And I freaked out and was really surprised about my reaction. Anyway, the next time I sat down to work on my novel, I kept going over that moment in my head. And then I knew that I wanted to write about a girl who lost her phone in a symbolic way. That was my a-ha moment, I guess. I can tell a story about a girl who will learn that she’s not the disconnected person she thinks she is.

The Dig is the first book in a trilogy that follows outsider Zoe Calder on her travels through time to Ancient Greece where she discovers that she has special powers. She meets Zeus. Hello crush!
And then she endures trials and heads to Mount Olympus with Zeus where she clashes with the clique of gods. They’re all pretty rankled by her budding relationship with Zeus. After all, where did this Zoe come from? Why does she have powers? At school, Zoe understands that her outsidery status is her own doing. But here, the tables are kind of turned. And ultimately, she learns a lot about her own power, the power that we all have, whether or not we can, you know, move actual mountains.

A big decision I made writing The Dig was to adapt the gods to be teenagers. When I meet new people I always wonder what they were like in high school. I think you learn so much about someone when you learn how they evolved, or haven’t. So I liked the idea of Zeus, who has this reputation for being so cold and domineering having had a period in life where he was actually kind of vulnerable.

And who knows? Maybe the image he has now is totally untrue and he never did all these terrible things. Or maybe he got fed up on Olympus and eventually turned into the Zeus we read about it books. Teenage years are formative years, and that’s what makes the stakes so high.
Plus, the Olympian gods are such strong characters. It was exciting to me to make the leap that they might have been real people with flaws and baggage like all of us. Then we have Zoe, who can be cynical about people, learning that you can’t always judge a book by its cover. In high school, we all tend to put certain people on pedestals because of their appearances or their abilities.
And I like the idea of Zoe dealing with a group of kids who are literally on pedestals. What a great journey for a teenage girl who thinks she’s sort of immune to cliques, to be alone, on Olympus with the ultimate clique of teens. And I think the reason she falls so hard for Zeus isn’t just that he’s, you know, Zeus who’s hot and can fly, but also that through spending time with him, she’s changing her outlook on people. And that’s a powerful experience.

This is my first novel. I had always wanted to write a coming of age story about a strong, independent girl learning about her strengths, her weaknesses and her capacity for love.
I want to send out a BIG thank you to all of my readers. I’m so thrilled with the overall response to The Dig thus far. Everyone is so articulate, opinionated and passionate about literature and I feel so fortunate that all of these wonderful people are taking time to read my book.

A friend of mine said I should write a movie instead of a book because nobody reads anymore. And I mean obviously, this friend was gloriously way off base. I also love to hear from readers about what they liked and didn’t like, so I want to encourage everyone out there to hit me up on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads. There’s nothing more fun than hearing what people like and don’t like, especially because this is only the beginning of Zoe’s adventure!

Thanks for the awesome post, Audrey, I just love it! :) And your friend was definitely wrong, people do read! :)

Blind Sight Blog Tour - Blind Sight by Ermisenda Alvarez, Eliabeth Hawthorne

Welcome to the Blind sight blog tour! I received both books for a review, and was asked to think about how the two sides work together.

Blind Sight includes two books, Blind Sight Through the Eyes of Leocardo Reyes and Blind Sight Through the Eyes of Aniela Dawson. And what makes these books so special is that they can be read together, or just one book!

So, I read both of these books and write a small review from both of them, then conclude how these two works together.

Blind Sight Through the Eyes of Aniela Dawson by Eliabeth Hawthorne

Published: 2012
Publisher: Ermilia, LLC
Format : Ebook
Pages: 173
Series: Blind Sight #1 Aniela
Source : From author for review
Buy : Amazon

A blind girl drawing is abnormal even on the magical island of Edaion where leaves brush themselves into piles in the middle of the night.
As an immigrant, Leocardo is not biased by accepted rules of magic and determines that Odette’s drawings are premonitions. Aniela grew up with magic and knows premonitions are impossible. She determines Odette is a medium channeling voiceless spirits.

In this volume: While Aniela tries to escape a lifestyle where obligations take priority over friendships, she befriends Odette, a blind girl with the ability to draw. Almost immediately, concerns and questions arise as Aniela suspects that Odette’s gift is far stronger than any seen before.
In the middle of family turmoil and a complicated romantic relationship with Odette’s brother, Aniela faces the realization that helping her comatose friend means disobeying her mother, something she has never done before.

*MAY CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS*
I had some pretty mixed feelings about this book. I just loved the beginning, and it was really promising!
Some may thought it was too slow paced, but it worked well for me. I also liked a lot how the relationships between Aniela and her family member came out. I especially adored the scenes which involved Aniela and her mother. Add Tatiana and the mess is ready!

Of course I also loved the beginning of Aniela's and Leo's relationship. She's all iffy and uncertainty is just killing her, and the reader, but that's part of the thrill!

Then came chapter 13, and I just lost it. It's a huge thing when the main character goes on a date with someone she's interest in, but we had no idea when did this happen! Suddenly, they're just on a date. I was actually mad, because I love the suspense, but now we just missed it. I felt like I was left out of something huge.

After that, there was some occasions when the plot worked and everything was exciting again, but over all, the story kind of fell apart. It wasn't so fluent, and there wasn't logic in the conclusion. Meaning the exciting end wasn't so exciting, because there was no logic in it.

There's also the exciting mystery with Odette, but it didn't feel like Aniela was actually trying to solve it, it was more like she just says over and over again, "she's a medium, because she has to be a medium". There's some things to back up her theory, but it just doesn't seem like the obvious answer. We get to see some glimpses of other peoples lives, but something's just missing. We also get some fishy feelings about certain people, but Aniela lives in some oblivion, where she doesn't notice this kind of things. We also don't get any background to the country they're living in, and since it's a huge part of the plot, it felt like something important was left unsaid.

This had some huge potential, and if only the execution was slightly better, I could have really enjoy this!

Blind Sight Through the Eyes of Leocardo Reyes by Ermisenda Alvarez

Published: 2012
Publisher: Ermilia, LLC
Format : Ebook
Pages: 181
Series: Blind Sight #1 Leocardo
Source : From author for review
Buy : Amazon

A blind girl drawing is abnormal even on the magical island of Edaion where leaves brush themselves into piles in the middle of the night. As an immigrant, Leocardo is not biased by accepted rules of magic and determines that Odette’s drawings are premonitions. Aniela grew up with magic and knows premonitions are impossible. She determines Odette is a medium channeling voiceless spirits.

In this volume: Snatched out of their life in Spain, Leocardo and his blind sister Odette find themselves on an island with no recollection of the trip. After foiled attempts to escape, Odette’s strange behavior gets worse. Even after learning the island has bestowed magic upon them both, Leocardo faces the possibility his sister is having a mental break down. Just as he thinks he is settled in, job and romantic life stable, Odette disappears.

*MAY CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS*
I just loved this! There was so many good things in this, I can't even remember everything.

The beginning was just sooo exciting! We find out how people end up in Edaion in the first place, and the history and everything else I left graving for with Aniela's side.

We also find out what happens with Aniela! Meaning, how they end up on a date. There's huge amount of other people, but there isn't too many, this just worked so well. Meaning the story.

It's really hard to say anything about this, because this was just so good read :) This is definitely worth reading, so get a copy, quick!

And then the main question..

How the two sides work together?

That's sort of a tough question. Sure, they have the same events and so on, so they do work together pretty well.

But it was also said, that these books can be read without reading the other. This is half the truth.
You csn read Leo's part of the story without reading Aniela's, but it doesn't work the other way around. I read Aniela's story before Leo's and I was truly pissed off occasionally. There's lots of things that are just glimpses from Leo's story, so they really didn't make any sense.
There's sudden references to jellyfish, sleeping beauty, Leo's girlfriend and so on, but they've only mentioned once in the story, so your mouth just hangs open, because you're so out of it.

But if I had read Leo's story first, I would've understand Aniela's side much better.

So, in conclusion: They work together well, BUT I suggest you first read Leo's story, other wise you'll get really confused.
And if you only want to read one book, I suggest you choose Leo.