Giveaway: Fool for Books Hop 2014

This Hop is sponsored by Kathy at I Am a Reader, Not a Writer.  And I decided it would be fun to do in honor of April Fool's Day.  This time the giveaway will only be available to the United States, sorry about that.  But I'm going to give away a surprise box of books and I can't afford to ship it internationally.  I'm giving away a box of 5 mystery YA books to one winner.  So just fill out the Rafflecopter below, then hop along to the other blogs participating in the Linky underneath the Rafflecopter. 


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: No Place Like Oz (Dorothy Must Die 0.5) by Danielle Paige

When I saw this was available as an e-novella, I had to purchase it right away.  I bought it before I got ahold of the ARC of Dorothy Must Die, but just didn't get around to it until after I read it.  It was nice to read this because it did kind of answer some questions I had as I read Dorothy Must Die.  If you go back to my review that I liked to above, you can see what my questions were.

As it says, this is a prequel.  In No Place Like Oz we join Dorothy about 6 months I believe after she returned from Oz.  But when she gets back, she finds that she really, really misses Oz.  In fact, you kind of see a connection in the way she feels about Kansas compared to the way Amy Gumm felt about it in the first book.  It is just about time for Dorothy's birthday, and at the party she begins to feel like she misses Oz even more.  Her Uncle Henry and Auntie Em are having some issues with raising money with the farm these days, and so the cake doesn't turn out so great.  And when her best friend shows up, she sees that her tales of Oz may have lost her to other, more well-to-do girls in the town.  Dorothy gets upset at one of her gifts and runs to shut herself in her room.  Under her bed is a gift from Glinda!  Some bright red shoes.  When she puts them on, she makes a wish, and she is back in Oz.  Only, not alone.  Her aunt and uncle end up there as well.  And they are not happy to be there.  They want to get back to take care of the farm.  But they land right by the old house, and there is a message from Glinda that she is in trouble.  So Dorothy sets off on a journey to find and help Glinda.  While many years have passed in Oz compared to the short time that passed in Kansas, she is still able to find all her friends, as well as meet the Princess Ozma, and begin looking for Glinda.  But she gets a taste of magic, and loving the life she lives as a hero there, and gets really irritated about her aunt and uncle who just keep harping about going back.

It's a different Dorothy than we know from The Wizard of Oz, but that's okay.  A trip like she had would change anyone.  Another great read, that while it gives you an idea of what is to come, it doesn't tell us every detail leading up to Dorothy Must Die, and that is just done perfectly.  Read it before or after, you won't be disappointed either way.

Stacking the Shelves - March 30th, 2014

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.  It is a way for us to share the new books we have collected.  Just a few things to share this week.

YA Book Exchange:

I got to read the first book in this series as an e-galley, and then I just never got to read this, the 2nd book in the series.  As far as I know, there are only 2 in the series, so I guess this is the conclusion?  But I was searching the older ARCs on the YA Book Exchange when I found this, and was able to trade it for a good deal.  Can't remember exactly what now though.

ARCs received:

I kept seeing all the bloggers getting the Summer of Chills books from Disney, and so I decided to do something I have only done once or twice before.  I wrote to Disney and requested it.  Unfortunately they were out of the kits that they had sent out, but the still said they would send me the books.  I'm excited to read all of them!  It just came in a regular FedEx box, but did also have the puzzle and a little cooling eye mask in the box with the books.

So everything this week is an actual physical book to add to my bookshelves.  What did you get this week?  Physical or e-book?

Review: Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

I was lucky enough to get to read an ARC of this that was sent to the Barnes and Noble where I work part time by HarperCollins.  I was extremely excited to read it because I had been hearing so much about it on other blogs, as well as from Epic Reads, and then the fact that I am supposed to be moderating a discussion panel with the author in May.  Unfortunately, I will not to get to keep the copy of the ARC, because I have to pass it along to the other librarian who will be helping me moderate the panel.  Guess I'll just have to buy an actual copy of it.  Not sure where that money is coming from at the moment, but I've got a month before the author will be visiting.  Anyway, on with my review!

If you haven't heard about this, as the title might give you a clue, Dorothy is now a bad guy.  She's come back to Oz and seems to have gone to the dark side.  She wants all the magic for herself, she's taken over Emerald City as a princess, and has enlisted her friends, the Tin-man, the Scarecrow, and the Lion as her advisers/security.  But as with other story re-tellings, we learn that some of the story may not be quite as it seemed.  Glinda the "good" witch has also become a bad guy, as one of Dorothy's friends.  The Tin Man is a bit different than pictured as he now has sharpened weapons as part of his tin suit.  The Scarecrow is a bit evil with his experiments that his brain wants him to do, many to only help himself.  And the Lion is pretty evil as well.  He takes the fear of others to increase his "courage".  The main character of this book however is not Dorothy.  It is Amy Gumm.  Amy also comes from Kansas, but has had a much different upbringing than Dorothy.  She lives in a trailer park with her mother.  Her mother who has emotional problems, as well as drug problems.  The kids at school are horribly mean to her, and when the popular girl, who is also pregnant, punches her at school, Amy gets kicked out.  So Amy walks home, seeing the skies get dark and stormy.  After a fight with her mother, who is leaving for a "tornado" party, the tornado does hit the trailer park, as you would expect from the old adage.  And Amy soon lands in Oz.  A much different looking Oz than she'd seen in the movie.  You see, Dorothy is mining all the magic from the land so that she can hoard it at the Emerald Palace for herself.  And taking the magic has made huge holes in the land, as well as turning it brown and gray, and dead looking.  She is met upon arrival by a very handsome boy with intriguing green eyes.  But he is very mysterious, and while he gives her the directions to follow the yellow brick road, he then disappears.  Amy sees an abandoned Munchkin village along the road, but all the Munchkins are out helping Glinda mine the magic.  One Munchkin ends up helping Amy on her travels.  Other creatures along the way are different than expected, such as the flying monkeys.  Which are now under Dorothy's command.

Amy must now decide what to do, and who to trust.  She will be arrested for trying to save a creature.  She will see a new friend be destroyed by Dorothy's minions.  So she knows Dorothy is not a good guy.  She is approached by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked, which includes one green familiar looking witch named Mombi, another witch named Gert, and a witch named Glamora, who is a twin to Glinda.  Also, a boy named Nox, handsome in his evil looking way, but at first not a fan of Amy's.  They have said that Amy is the only one who can defeat Dorothy, because she has come from the same place, Kansas.  She will train with them, but still doesn't know if she can trust them.  Amy will infiltrate the palace as a servant, to see what she can learn to help with the plan.  While there she will find out just how evil the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man really are now.  She will meet the Wizard, who is also back.  But can he be trusted either?  And back at the palace she will see the mysterious boy who greeted her, and also meet Ozma, the true princess of Oz.  She must decide who to trust, if Dorothy really must die as she's been told, and if she can really play a role in saving Oz from losing its magic.

A really fun, original read.  One thing that kept me hanging on every page was what would be incorporated from the original story/movie, and how it would be changed, or used to fit this story.  Now, I will admit that I've never read the books.  So of course Dorothy's shoes should be red in my mind.  This book talks about them being silvery.  Any of you who have read the book, is that true?  Or is it one way the author has made it her own story?  Questions I had about how old Dorothy would be in the story, and why she came back, etc.,  I am currently getting answered as I read the prequel There's No Place Like Oz.  I'm glad in a way that I waited to read the prequel until after, although as I've not finished it yet, I don't know that it would have ruined anything for me to read it before.  I'll let you know when I review it.  All that said, this is a great book, you need to get your hands on it.  And know, it will be a series, as the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, and we're kind of left still not knowing who to trust for sure.

Cover Characteristics - March 28th, 2014 - Angels

Cover Characteristics is hosted at  Sugar and Snark.  Here are the guidelines for how it works if you want to join in:

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favorite covers with that characteristic. If you want to join in and share your 5 favorite covers with the weeks particular characteristic, then just make a post, grab the meme picture (or make your own) and leave your URL in Linky (so we can visit).
You don’t even need to participate, just stopping by and saying hi would be great! Don’t forget to stop by the other participants!

This week's characteristic is:  Angels

5.  

4.  

3.

2.  

1.  My top cover is a movie cover, and of course it has Matt Damon as an angel on it, and I love him, so I have to put this cover first, and it is one of my favorite movies as well.

Now I know there are a lot of other angel covers out there, but I chose to once again pick ones from books I had read.  And I'm sure again there are others, but I only felt like going through 40 pages of my 89 pages of books on Goodreads this week.  What do you think of my cover choices?

Review: Unbroken (Ruined #2) by Paula Morris

I think I once again got this book from a Scholastic book fair, or maybe from one of their warehouse sales.  I enjoyed the first one in the series, Ruined, and was pleased to see a sequel to it.  And for the most part I enjoyed this book as much as the first one.

The main character again is Rebecca Morris.  While she's living back in NYC with her dad again, in this book her dad has a business trip in New Orleans, so they go back during her spring break. This time she gets to take her best friend Ling along.  And of course she's very excited to see Anton again.  The handsome boy that she got to know last time.  And it seems Anton is happy to see her, so much that he invites her to the school dance that will be going on while they are visiting.  He even has a friend for Ling to go with.  But it won't all be about parties and such.  They plan to help out with some service projects in the city. Cleaning up a beach, as well as another area in the poorer part of town that is still a mess from Hurricane Katrina.  Rebecca and Ling get to participate in some New Orleans traditions, and of course see her cousin Aurelia again.  Unfortunately, another ghost shows up and asks Rebecca for help.  Rebecca isn't sure who to talk about it this time.  She doesn't want to worry her dad.  Her friend Ling knows nothing of that part of her life.  And when she tries to talk to Anton, who was with her for the whole Lisette episodes in the last book, it's almost like he either doesn't believe her, or else thinks she should not worry about it, she doesn't need to be helping every ghost that asks.  But of course Rebecca wants to help this ghost find a locket he lost, a locket that may turn out to have a more meaningful reason to be found.  And not only is there the ghost that is trying to find it, there is the ghost that killed him trying to keep her from helping.  That's not the only obstacle, Toby, the crazy guy from the last time she was in New Orleans, is rumored to be back in town, and looking for revenge.

I really liked the ghost story in this, and how the locket had all the different connections.  I wasn't real keen on how Rebecca and Anton interacted, the awkwardness was a bit more than normal or easy to read about.  I love reading about New Orleans, a place that I must visit sometime soon!  And of course I'd be one that would want to go visit the graveyards, and the voodoo stuff.

Waiting on Wednesday - Revolution (Replica Trilogy #3) by Jenna Black

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases that we're eagerly awaiting. Just like last week I've chosen the third and final installment in a series. It's a series I've been lucky enough to read as e-galleys thanks to Edelweiss and Tor Teen.  You can read my review of the first in the series, Replica, HERE; and my review of the second one, Resistance, HERE.  I honestly cannot wait to see what happens after the last one ended, and how the author will end the trilogy.  Here is the blurb for the final book, Revolution, from Goodreads.com, wait, scratch that, there is no blurb yet!!!  Aaack!  Oh well, it is one I'm definitely waiting for.  Here is the cover at least.

What book, or books, are you eagerly awaiting this week?

Review: The Forever Song (Blood of Eden #3) by Julie Kagawa

Thanks to Harlequin Teen and Netgalley for allowing me to read an e-galley of this final book in an awesome series.  I must start out by saying that once again I have been pleasantly surprised at how well the series has been ended.  So many trilogies where I just loved the first book disappointed me in either the 2nd book, or the last one.  I won't name names, you've seen my reviews if you've followed me.   But this was a great finale.

We start the book out with Allison and her sire, Kanin, and her brother, Jackal.  They are on their way to find Sarren and kill him, as well as stop his evil plans to release a modified virus on the world that will kill all living things, not just humans, not just the rabids, but vampires as well.  Sarren is just that crazy.  Allison is in a bad state.  We all know what happened with Zeke at the end of the last book.  And she is ready to give in to the monster inside her.  To get over her last bit of humanity, the things that Kanin tried to take the time with her to teach her.  Jackal of course is happy about that.  He wants her to become more like him.  But we continue to see that Jackal has softened a bit maybe, at least where his family is involved.  Sarren is leaving horrible displays along the way, knowing that they are following him.  Bodies hanging in barns, ripped apart.  Messages that hit right in Allison's heart, about her human family, including Zeke.  And when one of them shows up, left there to really get at Allison, let me say I was so upset!  Wanted to cry!  They really have to catch Sarren before he reaches Eden and unleashes the virus.

I won't go on about the story.  Just know that the way the whole outbreak, as well as the problem with Sarren himself, is solved is really creative in my opinion.  I love how it happens.  I love the things Allison learns about herself and about her family.  I love that things aren't all just humans love vampires at the end, that it is still a very tentative situation of trust.  Great characters, even the banter between Jackal and Allison is fun to read.  I loved this story.  Can't believe that when I met the author, Julie Kagawa, I hadn't ready any of her books, so couldn't go all fan girl on her, like I would if I got the chance to meet her again.  On a side note, it's kind of fitting that I finally got my orders of the first two books in at the high school library where I work.  I can't wait to share them with the students, and will probably have to go buy the 3rd one myself since I'm out of money through the school district.

Review: The Blood Gospel by James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell

I have been a huge James Rollins fan for a long time.  But in the past few years I've kind of slacked off on reading his books.  His Sigma Series I really enjoyed at first, but just haven't been in the mood to pick up and read, so now I'm a few books behind in that.  One of my co-workers at the bookstore is also a James Rollins fan, and kept telling me I needed to give this new series a try.  When a paperback copy showed up in our strip cover box of books, I grabbed it.  And when I picked it up and started reading, I was hooked!  Unfortunately, as I've mentioned before, there was a reason that book was in the strip covers, it was missing a few chapters.  So, when I finally found the book on bargain hardcover price, I bought it, and went ahead and finished it this week.  While it still has all the normal Rollins bits to a story, you can tell there was a co-writer, and I'm guessing part of Rebecca Cantrell's job was adding in some of the romance parts.  Not too much to make it over the top or too extra, but enough to make it good.

The book basically begins with an earthquake in Masada, Israel.  And this is where our main characters come together.  There is a teen boy who gets sick when some kind of gas escapes from the fissure made by the earthquake, but everyone else around him seems to die from the gas.  There is the military guy, Jordan, who is in charge of cleaning up the area and trying to figure out what caused all these deaths.  We also have an archaeologist named Dr. Erin Granger, who is on a dig site near the earthquake.  And finally we have a mysterious Vatican priest named Rhun Korza who is supposedly brought in to give the last rites to the dead.  And the final main character is a woman called Bathory, who has supernatural ties to where this gas comes from.  Sergeant Jordan Stone calls Dr. Granger over to the earthquake site because it seems to be an ancient tomb of some sort.  And now all the excitement begins.  Bathory is trying to find what was buried in this tomb, the actual gospel of Christ supposedly.  And she has evil, unearthly creatures in her service.  Huge wolves, and vampires, or as they are called here, Strigoi.  Turns out Rhun also has connections to these creatures.  And Dr. Granger and Sergeant Stone will be needed to help form a specific trio that will find and unlock this gospel.  They will find other types of vampire creatures, ones that are faithful to the church and no longer drink human blood.  Stories of the bible that relate in new ways once thought about from a different point of view.  Other historical tales, Rasputin, the Countess of Bathory, Lazarus, etc.  We don't get a lot in the story about the teen boy at the beginning.  But I have a feeling he will really come into play in the next book in the series.

A fun, but makes you think story.  Fans of the Da Vinci Code types of books will enjoy this series I think.

Stacking the Shelves - March 23rd, 2014

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.  It is a way for us to share the new books we have collected.  Only a few books this week, but also a really cool thing I want to share as well!

E-galleys from Edelweiss:

So since I got the 2nd one, I figured I'd better go ahead and get the 3rd in the Quarantine series.  The 2nd one I saw on a bunch of other blogs last week for Stacking the Shelves, and I had written it down to maybe go back and get, so I went ahead and did it.  The 3rd one is by the author of the Hush, Hush series, that I've liked, even though I still need to read the final book in the series.  I'm not sure about it, but since I like the author, I'll give it a chance.

E-galleys from Netgalley:

If you'll remember this was my WOW choice 3 weeks ago.  Then I recently found out that the author, that I just love, if you read that WOW post, even thanked me in the book.  So you can see my name in the yellow box I added to the picture on the right.  I took the picture when I downloaded the e-galley.

ARC:

I didn't get this in the mail, I actually borrowed it from a fellow bookseller where I work.  But she was nice enough to re-package it how it arrived at the bookstore, in the box as you can see in the first picture.  Then when you opened up the box, it was tied in a nice ribbon.  Can't wait to read this.  I'll be reading it actually after I finish my current book, The Forever Song by Julie Kagawa.

So that is my exciting week in books, what did you add to your shelves this week?

Review: Expiration Day by William Campbell Powell

Thanks again to Tor Teen and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this back in the fall.  I chose this one based on the synopsis, and it wasn't bad.  I enjoyed it, and once I got into it I was hooked. I do have to say that unfortunately the end of it was disappointing though.
The main character is Tania Deeley.  It is the year 2049, and humans are dying out.  Fewer and fewer people are able to have children.  Now this is something that seems pretty realistic in a way to me.  It seems there are more and more people who have to go through doctors with lots of help to get pregnant.  And even then it doesn't always work well.  So I like this bit of reality pulled in to make the story.  So in this future, to help stop the violence that had been overtaking the world, the robot industry, and the government, now offer to families who are unable to have children a robot child.  But this robot is so lifelike, the parents don't usually even notice it is a robot.  Part of the contract is that the "child" will get updates every so often, so that they "grow up".  The robots don't know they are robots.  When they go have their updates, a story is told that they had to have surgery, and they remember being like they are now.  Now, they only get to be with their families until they are 18.  At which time the company that they came from takes them back.  Supposed to be the same as normal children who go off on their own at the age of 18.  We begin with Tania who is the daughter of the Vicar in her town.  She has a loving family.  She wonders which of the children around her are robots.  She does know of one boy that was a robot because she found him after he fell in the water.  She thinks maybe the one girl that she is really friends with, Sian, might be.  But then she has to help her with school work, and Tania doesn't think that sounds like something a robot would need help with. So she's unsure who is.  Until she goes out on a holiday with Sian and her family.  And as they're playing a game of hide and seek or tag or something, Tania falls in the water.  And now Tania knows she is a robot.  Normally, once the robot children find out they are robots, they often begin to act weird, and the family can no longer handle them.  And so they send them back, and get a partial refund.  But Tania and her family seem to get past all of this okay.  Tania also met a boy on a past holiday named John.  But she doesn't want him to know she is a robot.  But she decides she's ready for an upgrade because Sian is growing up, and Tania doesn't want to look like a 13 year old, she wants to look older.  So we get to follow Tania through her life, and see how being a robot might affect her life now that she knows.  But sometimes she wonders how can she just be a robot.  She loves to play the bass guitar.
I love the story, and the build up of how can this be just a robot when she has feelings and makes her own decisions.  Her family also got a robot servant before she knew she was a robot, but he was not like her.  He had to be given orders and told what to do.  You really feel for Tania, and when it gets close to her 18th birthday, and her father wants to fight to keep her, I really enjoyed the evidence he gathered and how he presented it to the judge/magistrate.  I won't tell you how the book turns out.  I just don't know that I was satisfied with the ending.  Oh yeah, the book is told in a diary format, and Tania pretends she is writing to an alien named Zog.  And partway through the book, it is as if this alien has found her diary and we get his point of view.  Not sure how I felt about that part either.  Overall a good, quick read.  Just not probably the best wrap up to the story.  I must say I am glad to read something that is a standalone for a change instead of a series.

The Friday 56 #7

This week I'm going to participate once again in Friday 56, sponsored by Freda's Voice.  Here are the rules:

Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader
 *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url. It's that simple.

"The husky black man snapped on a pair of latex gloves.  A dozen bloodstained pairs filled the nearby garbage can."

Review: House of Ivy and Sorry by Natalie Whipple

First, thanks to HarperTeen and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this book.  I requested it quite a bit ago, and just finally got around to it about a month before it will be published.  It was a quick read, but a good read.  I feel like it had a little original twist to the way the witches/magic worked, at least for the books about magic/witches that I've read.

The main character is Josephine, and she lives with her grandmother in a house that is on a magical spot in the area where they live.  These witches get their energy from magical spots or life/nature basically.  And they are territorial in a way, once you find a spot, you build your house there, and your family stays there and protects it as they use it.  Jo lives with her grandmother because her mother was killed by the Curse that has been used to kill witches throughout time it seems.  She doesn't know her father, because in this world, only women have magic.  And so men can't stay after the children are born, because they are not supposed to know about it.  In fact, when men know about it, they usually become evil, Shadows I believe they are called, or Shades.  Other than having lost her mom to the Curse, Jo's life doesn't seem too bad.  When she hit a certain age, like all witches, she really hit what you might call a growth spurt, and has outgrown her freckles and become quite beautiful.  Other than her frizzy hair if you ask her.  And now she has attracted the cutest guy in town, Winn.  Not only that, she has the two best friends a girl could ask for, Gwen and Kat.  Of course no one knows she is a witch, that is part of it, keeping it secret.  They are even able to keep their house's actual location secret by having doors that open to different places around town.

One place is under a bridge, and they go outside there to often get things they need for their spells, bugs, snakes, etc.  One day when Jo goes out to get something for her grandmother, a man is there.  She doesn't know who he is, but there is a blackness about him.  He asks for her mother.  When Jo goes back in, she tells her grandmother about him, and her grandmother tells her to stay away from him.  Turns out, he does have a connection to her and someone has kind of "booby-trapped" him to try to get ahold of her and curse her.  When they try to save him, her grandmother must help, and she takes on the darkness.  Jo will also have to decide as they discover who this darkness is, and as her friends and family are threatened, who can she trust?  Can she break the rules and let her friends or boyfriend in on the secret, if only to keep them safe?  And not only that, there is another new guy in town, a young guy, a hot guy, one who seems to have magic somehow, even though that is not supposed to be something that can happen.

While I can see that there might be a bit of a love triangle started, I'm pretty sure it went the way it should, and that Jo saw exactly how it should be, but how it could have been if she'd met one boy before the other.  I feel there could be sequels, but I'm very happy with how it ended, and think it should remain a stand alone.  Although, re-visiting these characters would be nice too, and I would definitely read any others like it.

Waiting on Wednesday - Unmade (The Lynburn Legacy #3) by Sarah Rees Brennan

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases that we're eagerly awaiting. Once again this I've chosen the third and final installment in a series.  This is another author that the characters really speak to me because of how much their conversations remind me of my friends, family, and myself.  You can read my reviews of the first two here:  Unspoken, and Untold.  And the author is so funny herself, both in person, and on Twitter.  I'm actually kind of hoping maybe there will be ARCs of these at BEA this summer.  Although I'm thinking a lot of time there aren't ARCs made for the final book in a series.  Without further ado, here is the blurb from Goodreads.com:

Who will be the sacrifice?Kami has lost the boy she loves, is tied to a boy she does not, and faces an enemy more powerful than ever before. With Jared missing for months and presumed dead, Kami must rely on her new magical link with Ash for the strength to face the evil spreading through her town.Rob Lynburn is now the master of Sorry-in-the-Vale, and he demands a death. Kami will use every tool at her disposal to stop him. Together with Rusty, Angela, and Holly, she uncovers a secret that might be the key to saving the town. But with knowledge comes responsibility—and a painful choice. A choice that will risk not only Kami’s life, but also the lives of those she loves most.This final book in the Lynburn Legacy is a wild, entertaining ride from beginning to shocking end.



I can't wait to find out what will happen without Jared.  I was always Team Jared, if there was ever such a thin.  I will of course keep my eyes open for e-galleys on either Netgalley or Edelweiss, but still hopeful for a physical ARC of this one.  So, what book are you eagerly awaiting this week?

Top 10 Tuesday - Top 10 Books On My Spring 2014 TBR Pile

Top Ten Tuesday is sponsored by The Broke and The Bookish.   

This week we are talking about the books that are priority on our spring 2014 reading list -- old and new!

And my most anticipated spring read is:

Now, I don't actually have all of these sitting on an actual TBR shelf, be it physical or e-book.  But, the ones that are not in hand right now, I will be buying, or am still hoping to get an e-galley or ARC of.  The last two are kind of going into summer reading, but as May is still before summer, kind of, I'm counting them as spring reads.  

Those are the books I can't wait to read this spring.  What books are your top 10 to read this spring?

Review: Sunrise (Ashfall #3) by Mike Mullin

I was able to get an ARC of this from the publisher, Tanglewood Press.  This is a series I have been a huge fan of since the very beginning.  Here is my post about the first in the series, Ashfall.   I got the sequel as an ARC at BEA 2012, and you can read my review of Ashen Winter HERE.  I have to say this is one of the best conclusions to a series I've ever read.  And there have been a few good ones lately to make up for some of the not so great ones of the past year.

As always, we are following our main character, Alex, as he tries to survive in what is left of the world after the giant eruption of the Yellowstone volcano.  He is living at his uncle's farm, along with the people from the town nearby who had to go there when their town was attacked.  But when they were attacked, they lost a lot of their food.  Living on what kale there is won't last forever.  Their greenhouses can only do so much.  So they mount an attack to get their food back.  They are up against what will come to be kind of the evil villain.  His name is Red, and that he says, is because of the blood that he likes to draw.  Using techniques suggested by Ben, the autistic boy we met in the last story, eventually they are able to get back their food, or most of it anyway.  But not without losses, and not without Red threatening to see them again.

But this isn't the only problem.  The townspeople want to move back to their town.  Which is fine, the farm is really only made for so many people, and it is nice for them to be just family and immediate friends for awhile.  But Alex's mother has changed since they lost his father.  She refuses to accept Darla.  But Darla and Alex are a pair, and will not be separated.  More family is lost in the battles.  And Ben keeps saying that they will not be safe like they are. That they should move to the town and build a wall around the town.  But try as Alex might, he can't convince the mayor to build the wall.  Darla and Uncle Paul have an idea to use some wind turbines and create a home there.  With Ben's help, they begin building a new home there, along with new greenhouses, and getting the turbines working to provide electricity.

Things aren't all roses and daisies at this point though.  There are more challenges.  Until they can get the kale growing, they need more food.  And they need supplies to build all these things they want to build.  So they try to trade.  First in town, but the mayor has set people against Alex.  Then the decide they must go to Chicago.  Along the way they find things they need, as well as more danger.

I don't want to give a lot away, so I won't tell too much more.  I just know that as I was reading this, I could totally see it as a tv series.  The things that happen to people in this are so real.  It's not all just getting away from the bad guys for the main characters.  They suffer loss of limbs, sickness, family issues, starvation, all of it.

There was a part at the end, when it seemed all was settled, they hadn't solved all their issues, but it seemed it might be the ending.  Working towards the final settlement.  But there was like 20 pages or so left, so I just knew there had to be something else.  And there was.  Just when it seemed things were where they should be, all wasn't as seemed. And it wasn't done in a hokey, throw something in at the last minute way.  It was done perfectly, the results were believable and perfect.  A great end to a great series!  Can't wait to purchase this final book for the high school library where I work now.  And once again I'll share my picture of meeting the author at BEA in 2012 after I read and loved the first book.

Stacking the Shelves - March 16th, 2014

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.  It is a way for us to share the new books we have collected.  Not too many this week, but since one was my WOW from this past Wednesday, that makes for a good week!

Won in a blog giveaway:

I was lucky enough to win this during the Leap Into Books Giveaway Hop from Therin Knite at Knite Writes.  Now I can work on this series for my Challenge this year.

Purchased:

Along with some books I purchased at Barnes and Noble with my employee discount to replace ones discarded in the high school library where I work, I saw this on the bargain table, and it was one I'd wanted to read when it first came out.

E-galleys from Edelweiss:

The first one of course was my WOW this past Wednesday, can't wait to read it!  The 2nd one is a prequel to a new series by the authors of the Beautiful Creatures series.  Which I need to finish that series this year for sure.  

E-galleys from Netgalley:

If you remember from my last STS, I got the 2nd book in the His Fair Assassins from the YA Book Exchange.  I did that so if I requested and got the e-galley of the 3rd book that you see above, I'd be ready to read it.  The 2nd one is not really a galley, as the book is already out.  But I went ahead and requested the second book in the Quarantine series, so that once again, I can request the e-galley of the 3rd one.

Not a bad week I'd say. I also bought some of the little bitty tiny Moleskine notebooks to keep in my Nook case to help me keep track of what e-galleys I have downloaded and when they will expire.  Hoping that will keep me on track with my reading them so I make sure to get as close to all of them read as possible.

What books did you add to your shelf this week?