Review: Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke

Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke
Author: Anne Blankman
Publication Date: April 21st 2015
Publisher: Headline
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

The girl known as Gretchen Whitestone has a secret: She used to be part of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle. More than a year after she made an enemy of her old family friend and fled Munich, she lives with a kindly English family, posing as an ordinary German immigrant, and is preparing to graduate from high school. Her love, Daniel Cohen, is a reporter in town. For the first time in her life, Gretchen is content.

But then, Daniel gets a telegram that sends him back to Germany, and Gretchen’s world turns upside-down. And when she receives word that Daniel is wanted for murder, she has to face the danger she thought she’d escaped-and return to her homeland.

Gretchen must do everything she can to avoid capture and recognition, even though saving Daniel will mean consorting with her former friends, the Nazi elite. And as they work to clear Daniel’s name, Gretchen and Daniel discover a deadly conspiracy stretching from the slums of Berlin to the Reichstag itself. Can they dig up the explosive truth and get out in time-or will Hitler discover them first?

The first 70% of Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke can be summed up like this. Daniel and Gretchen go here, then they go there, then they go there and then they go here. They fester on their feelings for one another, if love is enough when they both want different things for their lives, and if one wins out, the other will be unhappy. More festering. Back and forth, back and forth. Oh, then there's this little murder Daniels been accused of that set the domino's to fall. Basically, I was bored. We got the same thing over and over, the same thoughts, the same emotions. And if I read 'Daniels good hand' or 'Daniels good arm' one more time I'll scream. We know early on the outcome of what happened to Daniel in Prisoner of Night and Fog, the desperation of getting to England eclipsed seeking help for Daniels arm, and because of that, that it's damaged beyond repair.

Review: The Rise and Fall of the Gallivanters

The Rise and Fall of the Gallivanters 
Author: M. J. Beaufrand
Publication Date: May 12th 2015
Publisher: Amulet
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~ 

In Portland in 1983, girls are disappearing. Noah, a teen punk with a dark past, becomes obsessed with finding out where they've gone—and he's convinced their disappearance has something to do with the creepy German owners of a local brewery, the PfefferBrau Haus. Noah worries about the missing girls as a way of avoiding the fact that something's seriously wrong with his best friend, Evan. Could it be the same dark force that's pulling them all down?

When the PfefferBrau Haus opens its doors for a battle of the bands, Noah pulls his band, the Gallivanters, back together in order to get to the bottom of the mystery. But there's a new addition to the band: an enigmatic David Bowie look-alike named Ziggy. And secrets other than where the bodies are buried will be revealed. From Edgar-nominated author M. J. Beaufrand, this is a story that gets to the heart of grief and loss while also being hilarious, fast paced, and heartbreaking

One more add to The Strangest Books I've Read in 2015 list.

It makes a lot more sense once you read it, obviously, but still, the lead up, was so well done, and I surprisingly got rather attached to the characters,  and I say surprisingly, because...

Fantasy In Real Life #FantasyIRLTag: Part One

The UK release date for An Ember in the Ashes is June 4th and Harper Voyager came up with an amazing idea. They sent out these #FantasyIRL cards with the proofs, about issues in An Ember in the Ashes (and Fantasy in general) that coincides with what we deal with every day in real life.

I was going to post this all at once, but it would be a long post, So I'm splitting in two.

 If I want to save him, I can't let fear control me.

It's easy to let fear control your actions- it governs Laia's decisions from the outset in An Ember In the Ashes. And in reality, the pressures of modern life can be just as difficult to navigate.

We all have moments where we feel out of control of our own lives. What helps you regain control? 

I let fear control me at times, I let stupid little things control me at times because of worry and stress, I latch onto the littlest things. To regain control? I distract myself. Read. Write. Listen to music. I've never been one for a journal or diary, I started writing music in high school, and I used that as an outlet, I guess.

Waiting on Wednesday (#94)

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

Passenger by Alexandra Bracken

Expected publication: January 5th 2016 by Disney-Hyperion 

Violin prodigy Etta Spencer had big plans for her future, but a tragedy has put her once-bright career at risk. Closely tied to her musical skill, however, is a mysterious power she doesn't even know she has. When her two talents collide during a stressful performance, Etta is drawn back hundreds of years through time.

Etta wakes, confused and terrified, in 1776, in the midst a fierce sea battle. Nicholas Carter, the handsome young prize master of a privateering ship, has been hired to retrieve Etta and deliver her unharmed to the Ironwoods, a powerful family in the Colonies--the very same one that orchestrated her jump back, and one Nicholas himself has ties to. But discovering she can time travel is nothing compared to the shock of discovering the true reason the Ironwoods have ensnared her in their web.

Another traveler has stolen an object of untold value from them, and, if Etta can find it, they will return her to her own time. Out of options, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the mysterious traveler. But as they draw closer to each other and the end of their search, the true nature of the object, and the dangerous game the Ironwoods are playing, comes to light -- threatening to separate her not only from Nicholas, but her path home... forever

I'm not going to lie. I haven't even read the synopsis. But that cover. A city. In a bottle. 

What're you waiting on?

Review: A School for Unusual Girls

A School for Unusual Girls
Author: Kathleen Baldwin
Publication Date: May 19th 2015
Publisher: Tor Teen
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

It’s 1814. Napoleon is exiled on Elba. Europe is in shambles. Britain is at war on four fronts. And Stranje House, a School for Unusual Girls, has become one of Regency England’s dark little secrets. The daughters of the beau monde who don't fit high society’s constrictive mold are banished to Stranje House to be reformed into marriageable young ladies. Or so their parents think. In truth, Headmistress Emma Stranje, the original unusual girl, has plans for the young ladies—plans that entangle the girls in the dangerous world of spies, diplomacy, and war.

After accidentally setting her father’s stables on fire while performing a scientific experiment, Miss Georgiana Fitzwilliam is sent to Stranje House. But Georgie has no intention of being turned into a simpering, pudding-headed, marriageable miss. She plans to escape as soon as possible—until she meets Lord Sebastian Wyatt. Thrust together in a desperate mission to invent a new invisible ink for the English war effort, Georgie and Sebastian must find a way to work together without losing their heads—or their hearts...

Oh, A School for Unusual Girls, you were made for me, taking out the Regency England, which I've only read around four or five books, tops, of them. But, everything else. The characters. The romance. The humour. The cleverness. Basically, just all of it. It is similar to The Lovegrove Legacy series, although not in plot, but in what makes the book absolutely wonderful, not that it doesn't have its flaws, because it does, but it's that type of book that I don't even care because I adored it.

The Cage...and What You Shouldn't Do in It, You Weirdo's. (The Romance is Over When You Keep Picturing the Love Interest as an Oscar)

The Cage
Author: Megan Shepherd
Publication Date: May 26th 2015
Publisher: Balzer+Bray
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~ 

The Maze Runner meets Scott Westerfeld in this gripping new series about teens held captive in a human zoo by an otherworldly race. From Megan Shepherd, the acclaimed author of The Madman's Daughter trilogy.

When Cora Mason wakes in a desert, she doesn't know where she is or who put her there. As she explores, she finds an impossible mix of environments—tundra next to desert, farm next to jungle, and a strangely empty town cobbled together from different cultures—all watched over by eerie black windows. And she isn't alone.

Four other teenagers have also been taken: a beautiful model, a tattooed smuggler, a secretive genius, and an army brat who seems to know too much about Cora's past. None of them have a clue as to what happened, and all of them have secrets. As the unlikely group struggles for leadership, they slowly start to trust each other. But when their mysterious jailer—a handsome young guard called Cassian—appears, they realize that their captivity is more terrifying than they could ever imagine: Their captors aren't from Earth. And they have taken the five teenagers for an otherworldly zoo—where the exhibits are humans.

As a forbidden attraction develops between Cora and Cassian, she realizes that her best chance of escape might be in the arms of her own jailer—though that would mean leaving the others behind. Can Cora manage to save herself and her companions? And if so . . . what world lies beyond the walls of their cage?

The Cage is rather...weird. That's one word for it, different is another. You'd think weird and different would be right up my street, and usually it is, but this one...not so much. Not because of the actual story or world or plot or even characters, because for the most part of all of it, all of that worked.

The "Cage" was interesting in the fact that it feels like a paradox. Things look right, but they're wrong. Things look wrong, but they're right. The towns made up of different pieces of the countries from where the six characters lived. There's a beach, a jungle, mountains, a swamp, different temperatures and climates, all in a circle, all near each other but can take hours to get to, but then when returning to the centre of the town, it can take five minutes to get back.