Random Reads #187, June 25th

Random Reads is a monthly meme (that I'm going to do weekly) hosted by I'm Loving Books to read some books that have been on our TBR piles for a long time. Using Random.org, I got 3471 which turned out to be The Mirk and Midnight Hour by Jane Nickerson! It's been on my TBR pile since February 21st 2013, and I added it because I loved the first book! Happy reading! 

Write on Review-a-Thon Update 40 and Wrap Up

So I wrote my last review, Strands of Bronze and Gold. Yeah! I got 10 over my goal, when yesterday, I wasn't sure I would make my goal! So yeah, happy about that, all the more closer to finally finishing these reviews off! What about you guys? Happy reading!

Reviews: Inescapable, Intuition, Indebted, Incendiary, The Closer You Come, 172 Hours on the Moon, Grim, Darke, The City's Son, Beyond, Dark Victory, Dark Vengeance, Dark Inside, Bad Taste in Boys, Bad Hair Day, Ascendant, She Went All the Way, Huntress, Ash, Whispers in the Wood, Stormbringer, Carnival of Souls, Ten, Shadows, Team Human, Body Movers, 2 Bodies for the Price of 1, 3 Men and a Body, 4 Bodies and a Funeral, 5 Bodies to Die For, 6 Killer Bodies, In the Arms of Stone Angels, Indigo Awakening, Defiance, The Dark Lady, Dark Eden, Guardian. Hanging by a Thread, Precious Bones, Wicked Kiss, Wolf Pack and Gates of Paradise, Mila 2.0, Strands of Bronze and Gold.

Goals: 30

Reviews: 40

Write on Review-a-Thon Update 39

So I wrote my next review, Mila 2.0, and I'll be reviewing Strands of Bronze and Gold.

Reviews: Inescapable, Intuition, Indebted, Incendiary, The Closer You Come, 172 Hours on the Moon, Grim, Darke, The City's Son, Beyond, Dark Victory, Dark Vengeance, Dark Inside, Bad Taste in Boys, Bad Hair Day, Ascendant, She Went All the Way, Huntress, Ash, Whispers in the Wood, Stormbringer, Carnival of Souls, Ten, Shadows, Team Human, Body Movers, 2 Bodies for the Price of 1, 3 Men and a Body, 4 Bodies and a Funeral, 5 Bodies to Die For, 6 Killer Bodies, In the Arms of Stone Angels, Indigo Awakening, Defiance, The Dark Lady, Dark Eden, Guardian. Hanging by a Thread, Precious Bones, Wicked Kiss, Wolf Pack and Gates of Paradise, Mila 2.0.

Goals: 30

Reviews: 39

Jane Nickerson Author Page

The Story: I got Strands of Bronze and Gold from NetGalley, and yeah, it was just so good, and I was so lucky to get that! And yeah, I can't wait to read more!

Website

Stand Alone's: Strands of Bronze and Gold and her site, my review, The Mirk and Midnight Hour and her site, my review, A Place of Stone and Shadow and her site.

Will the Time Come #163, July 17th

Every Thursday I am going to list a book which I really want to read/keep meaning to get to. These are mostly books which have been on my shelf for awhile now but don't have to be, maybe you got it two weeks ago and really want to read it! Thanks to Jodie from Books for Company for this meme!

Want to Join?

-Pick a book you have been meaning to read

-Do a post telling us about the book    

-Link the post up in the linky  

-Visit the other blogs

From Goodreads:

A Southern girl. A wounded soldier. A chilling force deep in the forest.
All collide at night’s darkest hour.

Seventeen-year-old Violet Dancey has been left at home in Mississippi with a laudanum-addicted stepmother and love-crazed stepsister while her father fights in the war—a war that has already claimed her twin brother. 

When she comes across a severely injured Union soldier lying in an abandoned lodge deep in the woods, things begin to change. Thomas is the enemy—one of the men who might have killed her own brother—and yet she's drawn to him. But Violet isn't Thomas's only visitor; someone has been tending to his wounds—keeping him alive—and it becomes chillingly clear that this care hasn't been out of compassion. 

Against the dangers of war and ominous powers of voodoo, Violet must fight to protect her home and the people she loves.

Why the time hasn't come yet...
I don't know! It hadn't come out when I added it, and I didn't catch when it came out! But I'll read it! What about you guys? Happy reading! 

Waiting on Wednesday #148, March 5th

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

The Mirk and Midnight Hour by Jane Nickerson
Expected Publication: March 11th, 2014
From Goodreads:
A Southern girl. A wounded soldier. A chilling force deep in the forest.
All collide at night’s darkest hour.

Seventeen-year-old Violet Dancey has been left at home in Mississippi with a laudanum-addicted stepmother and love-crazed stepsister while her father fights in the war—a war that has already claimed her twin brother. 

When she comes across a severely injured Union soldier lying in an abandoned lodge deep in the woods, things begin to change. Thomas is the enemy—one of the men who might have killed her own brother—and yet she's drawn to him. But Violet isn't Thomas's only visitor; someone has been tending to his wounds—keeping him alive—and it becomes chillingly clear that this care hasn't been out of compassion. 

Against the dangers of war and ominous powers of voodoo, Violet must fight to protect her home and the people she loves.

From the author of Strands of Bronze and Gold comes a haunting love story and suspenseful thriller based on the ancient fairy tale of “Tam Lin.”

Oh, sounds like an amazing book! Can't wait to read it! What about you guys? Happy reading!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading #95, April 1st

It's Monday! What Are You Reading is a weekly meme hosted by Book Journey where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week...and anything in between! This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well...you never know where that next "must read" book will come from!

What happened in the past week:

Weekly Memes:
It's Monday! What Are You Reading #94
Teaser Tuesday #103
WWW Wednesday #103
WOW #99
Will the Time Come #95
Third Sentence Thursday #86
Random Reads #70
First Lines Friday #91
The Reward Challenge Round 71
Follow Friday #73
In My Mailbox #95

Week 13 Reviews:
Beautiful Disaster
Walking Disaster
The Essence
Timekeeper
Shadows
Linger
The Host
The Mirrored Shard
Mind Games
Henry Franks
Double Crossed
Perfect Scoundrels
The Nightmare Affair
Strands of Bronze and Gold
Mila 2.0
A Spear of Summer Grass
Isolation
Partials
A Touch Menacing
Wolf Pact
Gates of Paradise
Wicked Kiss
Weather Witch

OK, so I got 30 posts in 7 days, oh, wow, go, books!!! Love them!!

So this week I want to read With All My Soul, Sky on Fire, Grim, Dare You To, 172 Hours on the Moon, Light, Inescapable, Intuition, Indebted, Incendiary, Overprotected, Hysteria, Every Never After, Fragments, and Grave Mercy.

What does it mean when your school is voted the most dangerous in America? It's time to kick some hellion butt...

After not really surviving her junior year (does "undead" count as survival?), Kaylee Cavanaugh has vowed to take back her school from the hellions causing all the trouble. She's going to find a way to turn the incarnations of Avarice, Envy and Vanity against one another in order to protect her friends and finish this war, once and forever.

But then she meets Wrath and understands that she's closer to the edge than she's ever been. And when one more person close to her is taken, Kaylee realizes she can't save everyone she loves without risking everything she has...

Grim is a complex, gritty, and often gory tale which follows a series of grisly murders in Prairieville. The blood trail leads to a reclusive millionaire Heath Grim, who wears a mask to hide his war scars from the world, but he harbors a darker secret on the inside. Virtuous detective Adam White almost always gets his man, but he's haunted by the one case he's never closed - his wife's murder. When White is pushed to the limits of his sanity from a rising body count and a criminal kingpin who has turned crooked cops and corrupt politicians against him, will he be able to collar the killer? Or will a plot to tarnish his image and the killer's information on a common enemy turn White into the type of man he's hunted throughout his law enforcement career?

It's been over a year since all the adults disappeared. Gone.

In the time since everyperson over the age of fourteen disap-peared from the town of Perdido Beach, California, countless battles have been fought: battles against hunger and lies and plague, and epic battles of good against evil. And now, the gaiaphage has been reborn as Diana's malicious mutant daughter, Gaia. Gaia is endlessly hungry for destruction. She yearns to conquer her Nemesis, Little Pete, and then bend the entire world to her warped will. As long-standing enemies become allies, secrets are revealed and unexpected sacrifices are made. Will their attempts to save themselves and one another matter in the end, or will the kids of Perdido Beach perish in this final power struggle?

Light, the sixth and final book in the New York Times bestselling Gone series by Michael Grant, creates a masterful, arresting conclusion to life in the FAYZ.

I don’t open my eyes so I can’t see him, but I can smell him. He thickens the air I breathe, choking me with his scent…his aroma. I shiver. I have to resist. If I’m not strong, then I will be relegated to the same fate as this predator whose sickness infects me even now. But now, I crave him and he knows that; he has been counting on my need to end the gnawing pain. How he would savor my surrender. I’m alive, but how much longer will it take until I beg him not to be?

 I hang my head in sorrow for just a moment when I know I am truly alone. I feel like I’m going to my execution, just as he had said. Then I move forward again. I hop a fence of fieldstone and cross a field dotted with Queen Anne’s lace. Goose bumps rise on my arms as I pass the cluster of windmills that I have seen in a dream. The scent is sweet in the field though, not the scent of heat, like it had been when it was forced upon me in visions. I gaze down the hill, beyond the small, whitewashed house that I knew would be there. The church looms dark and grim with its rough-hewn, timber façade, capped by tall, oblong spires reaching to the sky. Black, ominous clouds have collected above the roofline, as if Heaven is showing me the way.

Cold, fine drops of rain fall softly on my cheeks as I emerge from the darkness of the ship's interior to the gray, overcast sky of the main deck. Pulling my dark pea coat tighter to my body, the wind lifts red tendrils of my hair. I walk slowly to the railing overlooking the water.

I catch my first sight of the Irish coastline; its craggy landscape makes me shiver in dread. I find it difficult to imagine now how the Gancanagh had made this their home for so long without anyone realizing it. The cold, moss-covered edifices practically scream their presence. As I study the shadows between the falling-down stone, I imagine creeping shapes of undead Faeries grasping the rock, waiting for our ship to draw nearer to their position.

Tipping my face up, I let the rain wash over me. It bathes away the frigid sweat of fear that has broken on my brow. "You don't know how fiercely beautiful you are, do you?" A quiet voice behind me asks, causing me to stiffen and fix my eyes on the rocks along the shoreline.

Ashlyn: A lonely society princess living in New York City.

Colin: Childhood enemy, now her protector.

Daddy hired him to be my bodyguard. Daddy thought I'd be safe. He thought I'd never fall in love. He thought he could keep me forever.

Charles: Obsessed with keeping her safe and keeping her his, he hires the one person he knows she could never fall in love with: Colin.

Daddy was wrong.

Kira Walker has found the cure for RM, but the battle for the survival of humans and Partials is just beginning. Kira has left East Meadow in a desperate search for clues to who she is. That the Partials themselves hold the cure for RM in their blood cannot be a coincidence—it must be part of a larger plan, a plan that involves Kira, a plan that could save both races. Her companions are Afa Demoux, an unhinged drifter and former employee of ParaGen, and Samm and Heron, the Partials who betrayed her and saved her life, the only ones who know her secret. But can she trust them?

Meanwhile, back on Long Island, what's left of humanity is gearing up for war with the Partials, and Marcus knows his only hope is to delay them until Kira returns. But Kira's journey will take her deep into the overgrown wasteland of postapocalyptic America, and Kira and Marcus both will discover that their greatest enemy may be one they didn't even know existed.

The second installment in the pulse-pounding Partials saga is the story of the eleventh hour of humanity's time on Earth, a journey deep into places unknown to discover the means—and even more important, a reason—for our survival.

Week 13 Review: Strands of Bronze and Gold

From Goodreads:
The Bluebeard fairy tale retold. . . .

When seventeen-year-old Sophia Petheram's beloved father dies, she receives an unexpected letter. An invitation—on fine ivory paper, in bold black handwriting—from the mysterious Monsieur Bernard de Cressac, her godfather. With no money and fewer options, Sophie accepts, leaving her humble childhood home for the astonishingly lavish Wyndriven Abbey, in the heart of Mississippi.

Sophie has always longed for a comfortable life, and she finds herself both attracted to and shocked by the charm and easy manners of her overgenerous guardian. But as she begins to piece together the mystery of his past, it's as if, thread by thread, a silken net is tightening around her. And as she gathers stories and catches whispers of his former wives—all with hair as red as her own—in the forgotten corners of the abbey, Sophie knows she's trapped in the passion and danger of de Cressac's intoxicating world.

My Review:
I enjoyed reading this book so much! I wish that I'd read it early, like I got the opportunity to do with the ARC, but oh, well, I read it, and I loved it, and I can't wait for the sequel! This was such a great book, and I enjoyed it so much!

So I know the basics of the Blackbeard tale, about wives, trust and curiosity, keys, and death. So I wondered how that was going to fit in this book. And I loved  how it did so, slowly, and it just crept up on you, that eerie feeling that something was happening, and then it was!

To be honest, I didn't like Sophie too much in the beginning. She was just a little bit too childish in the beginning. And then it kinda sucked that it was this experience that she had to have to grow her up. But her growing up, grown up, I liked her much better!

I really enjoyed her journey once it got going, the whole growing up thing, and that she fell in love, that she saw more possibilities for herself then what others saw for her, it just makes me really want the sequels, to see how they're going to play out!

This was a really fantastic book, I enjoyed it a ton, and I can't wait for the sequels!

Author: Jane Nickerson
Series: Strands of Bronze and Gold #1
Read: March 26th, 2013
Source: Tuebl/NetGalley
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a DAC book and a Historical Fiction 2013 Book!
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: March 12th 2013

4.5/5 Hearts

3.5/5 Books

3.5/5 Stars

WWW Wednesday #103, March 27th

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?

Thanks to MizB of Should Be Writing for starting and hosting this meme!

I'm currently reading Mila 2.0, and it's so awesome! I'm really enjoying it!

I read Strands of Bronze and Gold, and it was a really fantastic book! Really enjoyed it, and I can't wait to read more!

I'm going to be reading A Spear of Summer Grass, and I can't wait, because I love Deanna Raybourn books!

What about you guys? Happy reading!