I’m here and ready to Celebrate the Small Things! If you are new to this blog hop, all you have to do is sign up on the linky below if you want to join! If you already have, then go around to each blog that signed up and congratulate or just say YAY to everyone and their accomplishments for this week! (Full instructions at our host Vikki’s post here!)
Monthly Archives: May 2013
ONE Graphic Novel Blog Hop: Installment #3 of 10
So who is excited to see the third installment of Leigh Ann Kopan’s wonderful comic series for her debut ONE?!!?!? Because I know it can’t just be me! We have less than two weeks to go until ONE is available for purchase, so get super pumped. Here we go!!
Celebrate the Small Things Hop
I’m here and ready to Celebrate the Small Things! If you are new to this blog hop, all you have to do is sign up on the linky below if you want to join! If you already have, then go around to each blog that signed up and congratulate or just say YAY to everyone and their accomplishments for this week! (Full instructions at our host Vikki’s post here!)
Book Review: Dare You To by Katie McGarry
So I’ve been reading a lot of dual-narrative books in YA contemporary because that is what my current WIP is – trying to do my homework since I’ve 1) never really been drawn a lot to contemporary and 2) also never really read a lot of multiple POV stories except maybe Game of Thrones…but come on, George R.R. Martin is a genius so of course that was good.
Anyway, in my research, Katie McGarry’s Pushing the Limits kept coming up as a good dual narrative YA contemporary. When I saw her latest novel Dare You To on NetGalley for free to review, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for me to test out her writing style since it was also a dual narrative (and pulled characters from Pushing the Limits so I guess it’s considered part of a series). Now I had just finished reading The Sea of Tranquility which I am still reeling about how amazing it was so I wasn’t sure how much this book was going to show me anything more about dual narrative that I didn’t already acquire from TSoT.
Here’s the book summary:
Ryan lowers his lips to my ear. “Dance with me, Beth.”
“No.” I whisper the reply. I hate him and I hate myself for wanting him to touch me again….
“I dare you…”
If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk’s home life, they’d send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom’s freedom and her own happiness. That’s how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn’t want her and going to a school that doesn’t understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn’t get her, but does….
Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can’t tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn’t be less interested in him.
But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won’t let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all.
So my review? Wow. It was pretty damn good. Continue reading
Celebrate the Small Things Hop
I’m here and ready to Celebrate the Small Things! If you are new to this blog hop, all you have to do is sign up on the linky below if you want to join! If you already have, then go around to each blog that signed up and congratulate or just say YAY to everyone and their accomplishments for this week! (Full instructions at our host Vikki’s post here!)
Top Ten Books Dealing With Tough Subjects
This was a “tough” Top Ten to come up with, only because it was hard thinking back and trying to remember books that featured horrible subjects such as rape, suicide, cancer, and war. I don’t really like to think about those things a lot, but they happen nonetheless, and I think learning about the different situations and how to overcome them is the best thing you can do. You never know what is around the corner for you in life, and someday you might have to draw on that strength you learned about in a book of someone else’s tragedies.
So without further ado, here are my top ten books dealing with tough subjects. (They aren’t in any particular order.) Continue reading
Celebrate the Small Things Hop
I’m here and ready to Celebrate the Small Things! If you are new to this blog hop, all you have to do is sign up on the linky below if you want to join! If you already have, then go around to each blog that signed up and congratulate or just say YAY to everyone and their accomplishments for this week! (Full instructions at our host Vikki’s post here!)
Miss Snark’s First Kiss Request
Well, boo. I was trying to enter the Miss Snark’s First Victim – First Kiss Critique but it’s already full. I figured since I already spent the time putting together my entry, I might as well post it here! Let me know what you all think!
Lead-in: Roland has to confess his biggest secret that he believes will drive Candace away. She’s sitting on a piano bench and Roland’s on his knees in front of her.
“Do you have feelings for me?”
“I can’t tell you with words,” she replies.
I motion to the piano behind her. “Then, music?”
She shakes her head no and then pulls my chin up higher still. She leans down and brushes her lips against mine. Her breathing comes out shaky; anything she breathes out, though, I’m right there to take in. But it’s only lips brushing. She doesn’t make the effort to make it a full kiss, and I’m so frozen on my knees that I don’t either. But then I remember I’m being selfish right now. I’m taking this moment to hold onto in the future when I don’t have her anymore. So I push against her and make it real.
I rise on my feet, in my heart. Everything inside of me reaches to a newer height, but I never lose contact with her lips, my lifeline. I lean her back like I did when I dipped her during our first dance. Her elbows make contact with the right end of the piano, and it ripples a melody on the upper register.
I’ve never kissed a girl like this before. It’s not an I want you kiss or a how far will we go kiss, but a kiss that gives away a part of myself. A buzzing feeling runs through me, like I’ve been struck by lightning, but the electricity can’t find its way out of my body.
When she finally breaks away, even though I’m disoriented and burning up inside, I know what I have to do.
“I’m ready to tell you the truth now,” I mummer against her mouth.
She smiles, our faces still so close that I can feel every twitch of her lips. “You already did.”
Thoughts, comments, reactions? Was it swoon-worthy? Do you want to join the Roland fan club? (No, seriously, I’ve been asked if there is one established for him!)
Cover Reveal of EYRE HOUSE by Caitlin Greer
So we have a cover reveal today! It is EYRE HOUSE by the lovely Caitlin Greer. Haven’t heard of the book yet? Have no fear because I’ve got the description right here!
When eighteen-year-old orphan Evan Richardson signed up to work at Eyre House, on the sleepy tourist getaway of Edisto Island, SC, he never expected to find himself dodging ghosts. But Eyre House seems to have more than its fair share of things that go bump in the night, and most of them seem to surround his employer’s daughter.
Back from her freshman year of college, Ginny Eyre is dangerous from word one. She’s a bad girl with ghosts of her own, and trouble seems to follow her everywhere she goes. But living or dead, trouble isn’t just stalking Ginny. When her ex-boyfriend is found murdered in the pool, Evan knows he’s got two choices – figure out what’s going on, or become the next ghost to haunt Ginny Eyre.
Are you ready for the cover reveal of EYRE HOUSE by Caitlin Greer. I didn’t think so, but you don’t really have a choice anymore. Because it is here!!
Continue reading
J.A. Ward Writes 