Category: YA

Eminent Love by Leddy Harper

7/21/2016

Synopsis:
Life doesn’t always start with once upon a time.
Love doesn’t always end with happily ever after.

After spending five years with the love of my life, I did nothing to stop her from walking away. She had her reasons to leave. I had my reasons to stay. But a year later, the realization of loss hits me, and I’ll stop at nothing to fix it. I leave everything behind to drive across the country to win her back, and I refuse to accept anything other than fulfilling old promises.

But the only certainty in life is: nothing is as expected.

The most valuable lessons don’t often revolve around a fairytale ending—frequently, they come from hurt and healing. They come from the kind of personal growth love offers. The mending of your heart, your soul, and your life. And every once in a while, you find the greatest gifts in the packages you never expected to open.

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Randi's Review

Leddy Harper is a superb author who creates some of the most breathtaking work I’ve ever read. Eminent Love is emotionally gripping in one of the most realistic ways possible. Her work pulls you in so much so that you heart will grow close to every character and you feel every emotion that they feel. Leddy Harper has a way with words that makes your emotions rise and fall. Never before have images so clear and so vivid been conjured up from words on a page. The love that they have for each other is what everyone wants in life.

When the book is coming to end, Creed and Layne’s love ends in one of the most devastating ways possible but with a POV change you can see that their love will live on forever. In the epilogue the author shows that happily ever afters can happen after all. I loved this book with all of my heart and would highly recommend this to everyone looking for a sweet book to read.

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Bayward Street by Addison Jane

6/1/2016

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Synopsis:
The law said I was a runaway.
I preferred the term survivor.
After being broken down and emotionally tortured for fifteen years, I made a choice to change the path that my life was on.
It left me alone, homeless and scared, but alive.
The streets were where I found my family. A group of kids like me who society had failed to protect.
We weren't teenagers anymore – we were a statistic, a nuisance, the scum on the bottom of the city’s shoe.

When he showed up that night, I never expected to feel the things I did.
He was honest and protective and he saw straight through the hardened exterior that I had created.
He made me want to fight for something better.
I could run, go back to the street and continue risking my life just to live.
But now, being offered something more, I wasn't sure if I could go back without at least a taste of what it was like.
We came from two completely different worlds, but they were about to collide. And I was about to learn that maybe the grass really wasn't that much greener on the other side.

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Donya's Review

This was not my typical read. Addison Jane’s book is a YA tale about a group of runaways, either not wanted by their parents or escaping abuse. They’ve been failed by the system and have taken their lives into their own hands. Fable has changed her name, and escaped to the streets after serving time in juvenile detention for stabbing her abusive father. Knowing he will try to kill her if she returns home, she runs. She and the others that live at Bayward Street survive by begging for money or busking. It is during one of these times that they are attacked.

Heath Carson and his brother, Brayden, have grown up in comfort. They live in the big house and go to the private school, but they know no one is beneath them. So when they see a group of homeless kids being beat on, they step in. Recognizing one of the kids as being an old friend who was kicked out of his home, they take special note of the ragtag group. But when Heath spots Faith, neither realize how both of their lives will soon change.

This is a YA book, and all of the characters are under the age of 18. This was an enjoyable romantic read; but what really made this book special, were the adults Fable was finally able to meet that listened, not only to her, but to the rest of the Bayward Street group. This was not my typical read, and because of that, I did not know what to expect. But Addison Jane did a phenomenal job of guaranteeing that I did not think of these characters as children or even teens; but as young adults. I’m giving this a solid 4-stars!

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Winter (The Lunar Chronicles #4) by Marissa Meyer

2/23/2016

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Synopsis

Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana.

Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won’t approve of her feelings for her childhood friend—the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn’t as weak as Levana believes her to be and she’s been undermining her stepmother’s wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that’s been raging for far too long.

Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters?

Niketa's Review

Winter is the fourth book in the Lunar series written by Marissa Meyer. When I started this series I thought it would be a trilogy. I was mistaken, and because of my mistake, I felt it was a bit long.

Winter has many characters that really brings the story together. At times I did get confused between the characters because everyone had a love interest. I did like the ups and downs of the book, Marissa is good at writing suspenseful scenes.

She had quite a bit of suspense thrown in with fairytale twists. Not only is this series loosely based on the Cinderella fairytale, it had a bit of Snow White also. She mingled the two well. I felt that she dragged out the ending. In the end of the book she wraps up everyones love affair, which I found unnecessary because it is discussed throughout the entire series who loves who. Overall I did enjoy the book. I rate this book and series a 3.

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Halfway Dead

8/24/2015

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Written by: Terry Maggert

Synopsis

Carlie McEwan loves many things.
She loves being a witch. She loves her town of Halfway, NY—a tourist destination nestled on the shores of an Adirondack lake. Carlie loves her enormous familiar, Gus, who is twenty-five pounds of judgmental Maine Coon cat, and she positively worships her Grandmother, a witch of incredible power and wisdom. Carlie spends her days cooking at the finest—and only—real diner in town, and her life is a balance between magic and the mundane, just as she likes it.
When a blonde stranger sits at the diner counter and calls her by name, that balance is gone. Major Pickford asks Carlie to lead him into the deepest shadows of the forest to find a mythical circle of chestnut trees, thought lost to forever to mankind. There are ghosts in the forest, and one of them cries out to Carlie across the years--Come find me.
Like the forest shadows, danger can run deep. The threat is real, but Carlie’s magic is born of a pure spirit. With the help of Gus, and Gran, and a rugged cop who really does want to save the world, she’ll fight to bring a ghost home, and deliver justice to a murderer who hides in the cool, mysterious green of a forest gone mad with magic.

Halfway Dead Review

This book is a fun little witchy book! Carlie is such a fun character, and she is somebody I would love to know and be friends with. I love how she is in touch with everything around her and how she cares for her little town. She is insightful, caring, smart, small but tough. I found that I enjoyed how much her craft keeps her in touch with nature, especially the moon.
   I enjoy how Terry writes…he adds in little bits of life advise that just make sense. For instance this quote was my favorite, “take care of things that take care of you.” The book has many more of these fun, little insightful tidbits. I also like how Terry describes his supernatural characters..some of them are so unique. He also does a good job of describing the classic creatures as well….the mummy was my favorite!
   I would have liked to have known more about what happened with Major he is only mentioned briefly in the story…I kind of expected him to be more of a protagonist. I would also like to see a book written about the grandmother, because Carlie mentions her powers so often.
   Overall I enjoyed the book and have passed it on for others to enjoy…I rate this book a 3.5 stars!

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Never Too Far by Abbi Glines

5/4/2015

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Synopsis

He had held a secret that destroyed her world.

Everything she had known was no longer true.

Blaire couldn’t stop loving him but she knew she could never forgive him.
Now, she was back home and learning to live again. Moving on with life… until something happened to send her world spinning once again.
What do you do when the one person you can never trust again is the one that you need to trust so desperately?

You lie, hide, avoid, and pray that your sins never find you out.

Niketa's Review

* I was gifted this book for an honest review*

I did the review for the first book in this series called Fallen Too Far and it was great! So now for the second book in the series called Never Too Far.

I loved this book! First off I want to say that Rush can be such a stupid man sometimes, but he has a heart of gold. I like this story a lot because you get Blair’s point of view and then it switches to Rush’s point of view. Therefore that really added to the story. I also really like Bethy, she is such a great character and friend! This book makes me giggle (mainly because of Bethy) and wish I were pregnant (You will understand why when you read it). I also listened to this book as an audio book, and sometimes was confused as to who was speaking because the change in voice wasn’t very pronounced, but the reader does a really good job!

P.S Never Too Far has a fun little twist that will lighten your heart!
- I rate this book a 4.5!

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Fallen Too Far by Abbi Glines

5/4/2015

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Synopsis

To want what you’re not supposed to have…

She is only nineteen.

She is his new stepfather’s daughter.

She is still naïve and innocent due to spending the last three years taking care of her sick mother.

But for twenty-four year old Rush Finlay, she is the only thing that has ever been off limits. His famous father’s guilt money, his mother’s desperation to win his love, and his charm are the three reasons he has never been told no.

Blaire Wynn left her small farmhouse in Alabama, after her mother passed away, to move in with her father and his new wife in their sprawling beach house along the Florida gulf coast. She isn’t prepared for the lifestyle change and she knows she’ll never fit into this world. Then there is her sexy stepbrother who her father leaves her with for the summer while he runs off to Paris with his wife. Rush is as spoiled as he is gorgeous. He is also getting under her skin. She knows he is anything but good for her and that he’ll never be faithful to anyone. He is jaded and has secrets Blaire knows she may never uncover but even knowing all of that…

Blaire just may have fallen too far.

Niketa's Review

Fallen Too Far is a great book! I love the opening scene, it shows that Blair is a strong character. She is strong until she meets Rush that is. Rush is a reckless man that can’t find happiness until Blair walks into his house.

I like this story because Blair has to face so many problems and she never lets them get her down. She is the cheerful, sweet, naive girl from Bama. When I was in the first few chapters, I wasn’t sure who she was going to end up with Grant or Rush, so that was a nice twist. This book isn’t “girl meets boy, falls in love, and then sex, sex, sex. Abbi has a story line before there was a lot of sexing; and I feel like that really enforces the story, it makes it more believable!

I actually listened to this as the audio book, and I also really like the girl who reads it. It really enforces Blair’s character. I rate this book a 4.5! I have already started the second book and will be telling you all about it soon!