I'm A Blogger...Get Me Out Of Here

So, I'm out of here, apart from one or two scheduled blitz's, I'll be gone until the New Year probably, since I need a break, it's been a rather weird year, but a mostly okay one for me, so just a quick note to say Merry Christmas and hope you all enjoy the holidays. :)

Seeing as I won't be back until then, I'm extending my Birthday/Christmas giveaway, so don't forget to enter!

Merry Christmas!

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Review: Top Ten Clues You're Clueless

Top Ten Clues You're Clueless
Author: Liz Czukas
Publication Date: December 9th 2014         
Publisher: Harper Teen
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

Top Five Things That Are Ruining Chloe’s Day

5) Working the 6:30 a.m. shift at GoodFoods Market

4) Crashing a cart into a customer’s car right in front of her snarky coworker Sammi

3) Trying to rock the “drowned rat” look after being caught in a snowstorm

2) Making zero progress with her crush, Tyson (see #3)

1) Being accused—along with her fellow teenage employees—of stealing upwards of $10,000

Chloe would rather be anywhere than locked in work jail (aka the break room) with five of her coworkers . . . even if one of them is Tyson. But if they can band together to clear their names, what looks like a total disaster might just make Chloe’s list of Top Ten Best Moments

Top Ten Clues You're Clueless can be summed up in one sentence. 6 Teen employees get accused of stealing the Christmas Charity Fund and have to wait in store until the police get there. It's pretty simple. It's not complicated stuff and the whole story is told within a few hours. There's not a lot going on, and it plays like a heart-warming Christmas film, which is why I'm surprised I liked it so much. I like Christmas as much as the next person, but since Christmas films are on in November all the way up to Christmas and New Year, I want to stab myself in the eye by the 25th, except for Home Alone, I'll watch them every day. Which is why I don't usually read anything festive, not that this is exactly an overly festive book, you can read it at any time and it wouldn't make a difference, since it is set on Christmas Eve, but it's not focused around that.

There's just something about Liz Czukas books that leave me smiling all the way through, relatable characters and situations, realistic characters and situations and something just so normal about the books that make them feel real.

Now, since In the style of Chloe, who likes making lists, here's my Top Ten Reasons you should read Top Ten Clues You're Clueless.

1) Say that ten times fast. It's fun.

Blitz: A Breed Apart: The Token

A Breed Apart: The Token by Natasha Rogue
Publication date: December 2nd 2014
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult Goodreads: Amazon

Callie Michaels isn’t pretty or popular, but her singing more than makes up for all she lacks. And as long as she focuses on what’s really important, she can survive high school. But how can she focus with all the drama? Between her best friend’s odd issues and a daily dose of weirdness from the social elite, she’s starting to wonder if she’s the only normal one around.
He pulled the front door open. “That’s how it’s done.”
I rolled my eyes and made my way through the crowd that had spilled into the hall, muttering. “That’s how it’s done. Yeah? Where? In the jungle?”
“Yeah.” James’ breath on my nape sent a chill down my spine. “Something like that.”
Just as her life begins spiraling out of control, the answer comes to her in a dream. In exchange for a token of blood, a demon will give her everything she desires. She says “yes.” From that point on, she finds herself changing, becoming something far from normal. Something dangerous.
No one is what they seem—least of all her. While the supernatural creatures around her struggle to maintain their humanity, Callie slowly loses hers. She doesn’t even know what’s important anymore. Friendship, the future, love? And is there anyone who can make her care?

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Natasha Rogue is a Canadian author who's been writing for most of her life. After penning novels behind math textbooks all through high school, she attended Dawson College in Creative Arts with dreams of becoming a screenwriter. The best teacher she ever had took her aside and told her to go back where she belonged. To her roots with the books she loved to write.

Eternal Neverland (Steps Before the Fall) was one of her first complete novels. There are seven books in draft form completed in the series, but they gathered dust until experience and contacts with the right editors and crit partners gave them what they needed to be shared. However, A Breed Apart: The Token, was released through a small press in 2012. The book will be rereleased shortly.

You may find Natasha at several signings throughout the year as she writes multiple genres. Don't worry, she doesn't bite. But she will happily chat with you about the hotties who do. And shamelessly admit to liking Charlie way more than she should.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Waiting on Wednesday (#76)

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases.

I Am the Traitor by Allen Zadoff

Expected publication: June 9th 2015 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

In the third and final instalment in the Unknown Assassin trilogy, Boy Nobody is on the run from The Program and uncovers a secret about his past that forces him to decide where his loyalties lie.

The Program has sent Boy Nobody on countless missions, instructed to kill whichever target he was given. But now, after going rogue, he is on his own mission to rescue his friend Howard who was captured by The Program. Boy Nobody manages to free Howard as well as Tanya, a mysterious girl who was being held with him. Howard and Tanya help Boy Nobody collect information about his father, eventually revealing a dangerous secret that teaches Boy Nobody a valuable lesson -- he can't trust anyone.

Allen Zadoff packs the third book of the Unknown Assassin series with even more action, higher stakes, and mind-blowing reveals that will leave readers riveted

I loved the previous two in the Unknown Assassin trilogy, fast paced, quick read, and I just love the way they're written, sad it's going to end though. :(

What're you waiting on?

Review: Beware the Wild

Beware the Wild
Author: Natalie C. Parker
Publication Date: October 21st 2014
Publisher: HarperTeen
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

It's an oppressively hot and sticky morning in June when Sterling and her brother, Phin, have an argument that compels him to run into the town swamp -- the one that strikes fear in all the residents of Sticks, Louisiana. Phin doesn't return. Instead, a girl named Lenora May climbs out, and now Sterling is the only person in Sticks who remembers her brother ever existed.

Sterling needs to figure out what the swamp's done with her beloved brother and how Lenora May is connected to his disappearance -- and loner boy Heath Durham might be the only one who can help her.

This debut novel is full of atmosphere, twists and turns, and a swoon-worthy romance

Beware the Wild was everything I hoped and wanted The Drowned Forest to be, enough strange to be charming, enough weird to be strange and enough just is to not be religious. There is religion, it's set in a very religious town, but it wasn't exactly present in the story or focus of it. To which, I'm thankful of.  It  started off pretty quick, a lot quicker than I was expecting, and maybe that's why it dipped in the middle a little, it started the engine before you'd even shut the door, but it got me hooked so it done its job, and I'm not faulting it on that. The story was great , and the idea of it was fun, someone close to you disappearing and you being the only one to remember them, and the fact that the whole town and their lives carrying on as if that person never even existed, and in Sterling's case, having someone replacing her brother- as a sister, It also very authentic to the setting. But,  I am however, faulting it on a few things.

Review: Compulsion

Compulsion
Author: Martina Boone
Publication Date: October 28th 2014         
Publisher: Simon Pulse
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

Three plantations. Two wishes. One ancient curse.

All her life, Barrie Watson has been a virtual prisoner in the house where she lives with her shut-in mother. When her mother dies, Barrie promises to put some mileage on her stiletto heels. But she finds a new kind of prison at her aunt’s South Carolina plantation instead--a prison guarded by an ancient spirit who long ago cursed one of the three founding families of Watson Island and gave the others magical gifts that became compulsions.

Stuck with the ghosts of a generations-old feud and hunted by forces she cannot see, Barrie must find a way to break free of the family legacy. With the help of sun-kissed Eight Beaufort, who knows what Barrie wants before she knows herself, the last Watson heir starts to unravel her family's twisted secrets. What she finds is dangerous: a love she never expected, a river that turns to fire at midnight, a gorgeous cousin who isn’t what she seems, and very real enemies who want both Eight and Barrie dead.

Hmmm, I had high hopes for Compulsion, three  families, magic, gifts, a curse. A line that goes back, a story that no one really knows but assume to. Dejá vu, anyone? Compulsion is a story that's already been told, in a manner that isn't anything new, but I was expecting and hoping it would have a twist, something that sets it apart from its preceders. Unfortunately, there wasn't.