After Movie Casting News!

AFTER MOVIE CASTING NEWS!

 

Julia Goldani Telles (Showtime’s The Affair, Slenderman) and Hero Fiennes Tiffin (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) are set to star in director Jenny Gage’s film adaptation of Anna Todd’s international best-selling mature YA novel After for powerhouse producers Mark Canton (Den of Thieves, 300) and Courtney Solomon (Cake, An American Haunting) of CalMaple Films, and Jennifer Gibgot (17 Again, Step Up) of Offspring Entertainment.  

After follows the journey of self-discovery and sexual awakening of Tessa (Julia Goldani Telles). A dedicated student, dutiful daughter and loyal girlfriend to her high school sweetheart, Tessa enters her first year of University with grand ambitions for her future. Her guarded world opens up when she meets the dark and mysterious Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin). A brooding rebel that Tessa would typically shun, she is drawn by his magnetic energy that will change her forever.  

Anna Todd stated, “I can’t wait for everyone to see Hero and Julia as Hardin and Tessa. When I saw these two incredible actors together, I knew immediately they were meant for these roles– their chemistry and talent is going radiate off the screen. I trust them completely to bring Tessa and Hardin to life.”  

The film is currently in pre-production. Mary Verniue and Marisol Roncali are casting the film, which starts shooting in Boston in June 2018.

For the full announcement, visit: http://bit.ly/AFTERMovie  

About Anna Todd

Anna Todd is the New York Times bestselling author of the After series. Always an avid reader, she began writing stories on her phone on Wattpad, the global multiplatform entertainment company for original stories, with After becoming the most read series on the platform. The print edition was published in 2014 by Gallery Books. It has been published in over 30 languages, with more than 8 million copies sold worldwide, and is a #1 bestseller in Italy, Germany, France and Spain. Anna and her husband currently live in Los Angeles.  

Find her at AnnaTodd.com, on Twitter at @imaginator1d, on Instagram at @imaginator1d, and on Wattpad as Imaginator1D.  


For more information, visit:  
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imaginator1d/  
Twitter: https://twitter.com/imaginator1d  
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorannatodd/  
Website: http://www.annatodd.com


My thoughts:

I just want to remind you how much I love this series by sharing the link to my review if you click on the picture of the books above.
  

Also, I have to share the awesome moment when I got to meet the author at Apollycon 2017 and the picture of us with our somewhat matching tattoos that we took as well.

Six Adult/New Adult Romance Mini-Reviews

Unless I do a bunch of reviews tonight and tomorrow night, pretty sure I'll have a few books carrying over till next year.  But in order to make that a bit smaller number, I'm going to do another post of mini-reviews today.  I've grouped all of the books that are not YA or audio together for this post.  Check them out.

Torn (A Wicked Trilogy #2) by Jennifer L. Armentrout:

Published:  July 19th, 2016
Source:  Purchased paperback
Genre:  New Adult romantic fantasy
My rating:  5 stars

As always, JLA's stories are ones I fall in love with and burn through as quickly as possible.  This one left me definitely hanging for the third book, now out, which I'll need to get my hands on soon!  I'd loved Tink in the first book, and then the surprise we got with him in this book was NOT what I saw coming.  Still totally in love with Ren after reading, and I knew at the one point that there was something off about him, and I was glad that I was right when it showed what that was.  Another fun part of this was that now that I've been to NOLA and walked around a lot, it was fun to read about the city and have a pretty good idea what and where they were talking about, except for the fantastical settings of course.  And the Fae Prince of course, creepy as could be!  Finding out more about her friend who betrayed her, as well as other family and other history secrets, only led me to need to read on as soon as I can!  You can read my review of the first book in the series, Wicked, HERE.

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

Torn between duty and survival, nothing can be the same. 

Everything Ivy Morgan thought she knew has been turned on its head. After being betrayed and then nearly killed by the Prince of the Fae, she’s left bruised and devastated—and with an earth-shattering secret that she must keep at all costs. And if the Order finds out her secret, they’ll kill her. 

Then there’s Ren Owens, the sexy, tattooed Elite member of the Order who has been sharing Ivy’s bed and claiming her heart. Their chemistry is smoking hot, but Ivy knows that Ren has always valued his duty to the Order above all else—he could never touch her if he knew the truth. That is, if he let her live at all. Yet how can she live with herself if she lies to him? 

But as the Fae Prince begins to close in, intent on permanently opening the gates to the Otherworld, Ivy is running out of options. If she doesn’t figure out who she can trust—and fast—it’s not only her heart that will be torn apart, but civilization itself.

Royally Bad (Bad Boy Royals #1) by Nora Flite:

Published:  April 1st, 2017
Source:  Free e-book
Genre:  Adult mafia romance
My rating:  5 stars

This was my 2nd book by this author, and I ended up really enjoying it.  Even though I'm not usually a fan of mafia romances, I enjoyed the characters and story-line enough in this one that it was a good one. It was one that was hard to put down whenever I picked it up.  I loved the snarky comments that Sammy would say to Kain, totally reminded me of things I would say.  And it was so cute that he liked her saying those things to him.  Probably why I liked this so much, I want a guy to like me for all my snarkiness.  I look forward to reading more in the series and seeing how things work out for other members of the family, even though, as I said, normally I'd skip other mafia romances. This is why I like finding free ebooks.  If I love the story, then it will convince me to buy the others from that same author.

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

Getting close to an arrogant bad boy like him is dangerous. Too bad it’s her only choice.

Kain Badd looks great on paper: rich, handsome, and he’s even a prince. But after spending a few minutes together, Sammy sees the real him—arrogant, possessive, and too hot for his own good. If she hadn’t agreed to help plan his sister’s wedding, she could have avoided him. Instead, she’s waking up in his bed after an unforgettable night she definitely wants to forget. But he won’t let her.

When Sammy thinks her life can’t get any crazier, the wedding is raided by the police, and she spends her first-ever night in jail. The irresistible Kain isn’t just bad in name—his family is connected to a dangerous underworld. Now she’s mixed up in a power struggle between his family’s empire and their rivals. She has no choice but to put herself back in this filthy prince’s extremely capable hands.

Sammy must trust Kain to keep her safe. She’s just not sure she can trust herself to resist temptation.

That One Moment (Lost in London #2, London Lovers #5) by Amy Daws:

Published:  April 12th, 2016
Source:  Purchased e-book
Genre:  Adult romance
My rating:  5 stars

Amy Daws is another author that I pretty much am going to almost always give a 5 star rating to.  All of her books have so much romance and emotion, and again, the humor that I love so much in a romance, or any story to be honest.  This one totally got me because Hayden had his niece to help him whenever he felt suicidal, she was his reason to live at times, and there have been times when I've thought that way about my own niece when I get to where I feel like things are not worth going on for.  And then, well, I kind of read out of order, because I read and loved the books about all the Harris brothers, Challenge, Endurance, and Keeper, and wanted to know Vi's story, but didn't realize this was her book, and that I needed to read it.  It was fun to read after I'd read the others though, because I really could enjoy her brothers this way as they appeared in Vi's story.  And of course I'd been eager for Hayden's story too, after I'd read the book before this, Not the One, where he'd had his suicide attempt.  I wanted to see him get his HEA.   If you haven't tried an Amy Daws book yet, you need to!

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

That One Moment is a full length standalone romance, it's book 2 in the Lost in London Series and can be read as a standalone. 

Life is a series of reoccurring ripples in time. 
The moment I saw her…something shifted. 
The moment my lips touched hers…life got messy. 
The moment my heart got involved…everything changed. 

Vi Harris tests every bit of my strength. 
She is my test. 
My challenge. 
At a time when I should be focusing entirely on myself, this radiant woman with a bright, cheeky smile and a cracked sense of humor waltzes in and spins everything on its axis. 

Vi has the potential to make me weak at a time when I’m determined to show everyone just how bloody strong I am. 
She’s everything I am not…yet somehow, she sees through my darkness. 
My pain. 
My despair. 
She doesn’t see me as broken. 
She sees me as the man I’m fighting so hard to be. The man that I’m still struggling to see myself.

American Prince (New Camelot Series #2) by Sierra Simone:

Published:  March 7th, 2017
Source:  Purchased physical copy of book
Genre:  Adult erotic romance
My rating:  4 stars

Okay, so even though I "met" the author last March at the Kinky in Kansas City convention, I learned this past November that Sierra Simone is a pen name for her, or at least that she also wrote a YA series under another name, and that is how I'd met and read her writing first.  So, while this type of story isn't always my favorite, I'm not really big into the BDSM, and while I'm okay with M/M, I don't always pick it to read.  However the story in the first book, American Queen, left off in a way that I had to read on and find out what would happen next. In this second book we get Embry's story, his love of Maxen, and Greer, and more stories of the war that brought him together and in love with Maxen.  It also leads us to find out what causes the things that happen to Greer, who is behind them, and what are their reasons for this.  I will definitely have to get a copy of the final book, American King, to read and get autographed when I get to see the author again in March at the 2018 Kinky in Kansas City convention.  Warning on this one, the sex is very graphic, and as I said, M/M as well as MMF and BDSM.

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

I've been many things. I've been a son and a stepbrother. An Army captain and a Vice President. But only with him am I a prince. His little prince. Only with Maxen and Greer does my world make sense, only between them can I find peace from the demons that haunt me. But men like me aren't made to be happy. We don't deserve it. And I should have known a love as sharp as ours could cut both ways. My name is Embry Moore and I serve at the pleasure of the President of the United States... for now. This is the story of an American Prince. 

Make It Count (Bowler University #1) by Megan Erickson:

Published:  July 8th, 2014
Source:  Purchased physical copy of book
Genre:  New Adult contemporary romance
My rating:  4 stars

So, I met this author back at Apollycon 2017, and I hadn't read any of her books yet.  In fact, I didn't even read this one, until I started reading her serial Boots - now Hidden Truths, that she published a chapter a week in her e-newsletter, and I fell in love with that.  So I dug this one out of my TBR pile and picked it up to read.  Needless to say, it was one I could barely put down when I picked it up, but I only let myself read it before bed, or when I was taking a nice hot bubble bath, so it wasn't finished as quickly that way.  While I'm not a big fan of cheating, and that did set me back a little at first, in the end, Kat belonged with Alec, and we find out that her boyfriend wasn't quite the perfect guy we'd been thinking.  I will have to read on in this series to see how it goes for the other characters.

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

Kat Caruso wishes her brain had a return policy, or at least a complaint hotline. The defective organ is constantly distracted, terrible at statistics, and absolutely flooded with inappropriate thoughts about her boyfriend's gorgeous best friend, Alec . . . who just so happens to be her brand-new math tutor. Who knew nerds could be so hot?

Kat usually goes through tutors like she does boyfriends--both always seem to bail when they realize how hopeless she is. It's safer for her heart to keep everyone at arm's length. But Alec is always stepping just a little too close.

Alec Stone should not be fantasizing about Kat. She's adorable, unbelievably witty, and completely off-limits. He'd never stab his best friend in the back . . .

But when secrets are revealed, the lines of loyalty are blurred. To make it count, Alec must learn that messy human emotions can't be solved like a trigonometry function. And Kat has to trust that he may be the first guy to want her for who she is, and not in spite of it. 

Skin Deep (Ink and Brazen Women #1) by Cassie Leigh:

Published:  September 26th, 2017
Source:  E-galley for review
Genre:   Adult contemporary romance
My rating:  3.5 stars

This is my first book by this author, and overall I really did like it.  I had some issues with some of the way things were kind of simplified in the writing, and there were parts when it kind of skipped back and forth between the two main characters that would confuse me for a minute, that is a problem I have with third person point of view sometimes.  It was a pretty sweet story though.  I liked the two characters together, and it made me want another tattoo myself.  I was glad to see when Gigi finally decided to take some control in her own family and help her mother that things went as well as could be expected.  I was definitely disappointed in Roman when he assumed what he did.  Especially since he'd looked at her messages on her phone, and should have seen Gigi's responses to the guy she had nicknamed Dick Pic in her phone.  I will be reading on in the series though, hoping to have Roman's sister's story next.  I also loved that Gigi loved pink, and that Roman loved that about her.  A fun little detail in the story.  As I love pink, but also love orange, and my family knows my love of orange and teases me about it, this definitely connected with me!

Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

Mr. Right Now is planning on forever...
Gigi Duval doesn’t do relationships, especially with her heart and career on the line. She values two things—her image and a good time in the bedroom. Watching men lie and cheat her whole life hardened her against “happily ever after”. When she interviews with Roman Bishop, the sexy co-owner of Ink Spinners Tattoo, she begins to wonder if he might be more than a casual fling. Only one thing is certain: Roman is off limits. Gigi can’t possibly add her best friend’s brother to her little pink book. Or can she?
 

Three Reviews: Unknown Trilogy by Wendy Higgins

I had purchased the first book in the trilogy, Unknown, last March when I got to meet the author at Apollycon.  I hadn't had a chance to read it, but then I heard of the tour for the final book in the series, and so I signed up to read them and review.  I was fortunate enough to get copies of the second book, Unrest, and this third and final one, Undone, to review for the tour.  The first two books took me about 3 or 4 days to read each. But the final one, well besides that I was down to only two days till I had to review it, it was so good I could barely put it down to go back to work from my breaks, or go to bed.  Obviously if you haven't read any of them, you'll want to probably stop with my review of book one below, and not go on to the second or third book reviews, as they will have spoilers for each of the book before them, I don't know how to do much of a review without it.  Let me just say that I ended up loving this series, and while I only own a physical copy of the first one, I will be purchasing physical copies of the final two in the trilogy, in hopes of getting to meet the author again and get them signed as well.

Book info:

Title:  Unknown

Series:  Unknown Trilogy #1
Genre:  YA/NA Science fiction
Release Date:  August 8th, 2016
Source:  Purchased physical copy from author at Apollycon
My rating:  5 stars

Synopsis:
In this first installment of NY Times bestselling author, Wendy Higgins's debut New Adult series, a frighteningly realistic apocalyptic America is brought to life, entwined with searing romantic tension that will leave you eager for more. 
*** 
Amber Tate believes the worst thing she'll suffer in life is dealing with the unrequited love she feels for her brother's best friend, Rylen Fite. She also believes war is something unfortunate that happens places far, far away from her rural Nevada town. She's wrong on both counts. 

When an unknown organization meticulously bombs major cities in the United States and across the globe, a trickle-down effect spreads to remaining towns at an alarming speed-everything from food and water sources to technology and communications are compromised. Without leadership, the nation is split between paralysis and panic, but Amber isn't one to hide or watch helplessly. She's determined to put her nursing skills to use, despite the danger, even if it means working alongside the man she can never have.

My review:
I picked this one up to read right before bed one night, and told myself I would just read chapter. Well, that didn't last as I could barely put it down!  The character, Amber, was just so relatable and interesting, that I was drawn in and had to know how things would go. And then there was Rylen.  It was a total brother's best friend romance, but then again it wasn't.  When Rylen went away to war, he came back and it was as if he'd  never known how she felt about him. Even all the moments when it seemed like maybe he felt the same, or she even basically came out and told him in one of her emails.  So when he comes back at a point in the war that means everyone ends up back home, when things get really bad all over the world, what has happened to him keeps them apart, and I know I was crying so much, as if it had happened to my best friend, or even myself.  I loved Rylen, and I just knew that he was supposed to be with Amber, in spite of what happened.  There came a time when the back story to the little issue was revealed, and then I knew it was what I had suspected caused that issue in the first place. And I felt a little better and could go on reading, not quite as heartbroken as before.

The tragedy that happens to all of their family is really insane, and what it does to all of them definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat.  I liked the little dalliance between Amber's best friend Remy and Amber's brother, Tater.  It was a humorous scene, even surrounded by all that happened to them before.  It was a little frustrating that Rylen and Amber could not overcome it all to take that moment to finally figure out what was between them as well.  In the end I was so glad I had book two to go on and find out what happened next.

Book 2:

Title:  Unrest  
Release Date:  February 9th, 2017
Source:  E-copy from author/publicist
My rating:  5 stars

Summary:
New York Times bestselling author Wendy Higgins brings you the second book in this thrilling apocalyptic world... 

Being on the run in the desert means food and sanctuary are hard to come by, but Amber Tate and her crew are not about to give up. Not after having the things they love brutally ripped from them by an unknown enemy who sent their world into the apocalypse. 

Survival takes precedence, but once safe shelter is found, their guards fall and the emotions they’ve been holding in are finally released. Anger, insecurities...lust. In their tight quarters, Amber, Rylen, Tater, and Remy can't escape it. The past must be faced, and passions run even stronger in the darkest of times. 

In the midst of unrest, their worlds are rocked again when they discover the truth about the war that’s ruined their lives. They thought finding out the enemy's identity would give them the edge; instead it’s revealed terrifying dangers they never thought possible. 

My review:
We got a lot of great new characters, both from the end of the last book, as well as at the base where they ended up in this book.  There was a point when I was practically shouting at Amber and Rylen to figure their stuff out and get together.  I hated the character Linette, even though in the end, she may have done a good thing, in finally helping Amber make her move.  When the two of them finally figure it out, it is perfect though.  I really liked the base that they lived at, the underground part, as well as how they tunneled through to a nearby hotel so that they all had pretty comfortable living quarters to start with.  Finding out just what the aliens had done to the girls and other people with the shots and other things they'd done was heartbreaking in this story, but also helped make things easier for other things to take place.  

Of course we had to lose characters, it wouldn't be realistic if not, I'm glad that for the most part, our main characters stayed alive. Even if Tater was just so out of it, not being able to overcome what had happened to his family, and almost to Amber at one point in their journey.  Then there was the discovery of one of the humans that had worked for the aliens, and I knew exactly what he was going to end up with as a secret that would hurt our main characters.  The plan they set up was great, and leaving to go to the next part of the plan worked out, other than when we lost a couple of the characters, two of our very important ones in fact.  Once again, when I finished, I was so glad I had book three, so that I could jump right in and see what happened to those three who'd been left behind unfortunately when the base got attacked by the aliens.

Book 3:

Title:  Undone  
Release Date:  December 5th, 2017
Source:  E-galley from author/publicist
My rating:  5 stars

Synopsis:
USA Today and New York Times bestselling author, Wendy Higgins, brings you the gripping, sensual conclusion to her apocalyptic trilogy.

Amber Tate never dreamed their heart-wrenching escape from the enemy’s attack would lead them to the most beautiful place she’s ever seen, marred by one ugly fact; it’s under enemy control. Like everywhere else in the world, Elmendorf military base in Alaska has been captured, and it’s time to take it back—all of it—one base, one city at a time. After losing so much, Amber clings to the only precious person she has left, and vows to sacrifice everything to help save the Earth.

Remy Haines is a lover, not a fighter, so when she finds herself in enemy territory, expected to feign allegiance while gathering intel for the rebel cause, she’s never been more out of her element. Tensions only increase when her feelings for Jacob “Tater” Tate won’t go away, and the enemy’s leader takes an interest in her. She’s torn between what her heart wants, and what she knows she should do. As for what her body needs…well, it’s always had a mind of its own.  

My review:
I feel like it has been a while since I have marked every book in a series as 5 stars, but this trilogy really earned all of those stars for me.  This final book goes back and froth between two viewpoints, Amber as in the first two, and then Remy, her best friend.  Since Remy and Tater and Linette were all captured by the aliens at the end of book two, we had to follow them to find out how they would survive all of this. And in a way, their story was often the one that kept me going, quickly reading through Amber's parts to get back to them.  Mainly because Remy was set up in a way that she had to deal with the leader of the aliens, the man who also happened to be the Senator that everyone respected and looked up to so much in the first book.  It turned out he was one of the aliens.  But he had been with the humans his whole life basically, and felt a connection with Remy. She was able to use that connection to try to find things out to help her friends.  In this story we had the other crew, Amber and Rylen and the others from the military base in Alaska now, that were doing their best to plan a way to take the aliens down, before more came from their home planet.  We find out there are pockets of human resistance all over the world, and they learn to communicate with very old technology, keeping the aliens, for the most part from figuring out or noticing.  

Again we have injuries, and a couple deaths.  The romance between Rylen and Amber finally gets to take place, even as they have to move to the base in Alaska where they are no longer staying in a hotel room, but sharing huge rooms with lots of other members of the same sex.  A base where there is a closet people meet in for their rendezvous.   It is definitely a part that adds some lightness and humor to the darkness they all live in.  Not to mention the run in with a bear, the tall guy being afraid of heights, and more.  Remy gets a chance to be a teacher, like she'd wanted before all of this happened, although not in the way she'd thought. But by her closeness to their leader, she also began to empathize and feel a little more than just the hatred for them that the rest of the humans felt.  Amber gets to continue working on her medical skills, as she has all through the whole series.  

The ending was great.  I liked that we could have such a happy ending, and have the main characters survive.  While maybe that is not realistic, I'm reading a fictional story, I'm okay with a happy ending, or happier ending I should say.

If I can find a way to get these books for my school library, I will definitely do it, as I think my students would enjoy this series as much as I did. 



I included the  original covers of the first two above, but they were redone to match the final book in the trilogy. So here are the redone covers of books one and two.

Let's Celebrate Year Number Eight!

via GIPHY

Guess whose blog is turning eight?  You got it!  Lisa Loves Literature, ME!!!  I can't believe it has been that long.  But I've had a great time!  This past year has had some ups and downs, more ups than downs though.  Since my last blogoversary:

• I attended NOLA Storycon and got to meet a bunch of my new favorite authors.

Samantha Young

Jay Crownover (she takes the best selfies)

Jennifer L. Armentrout, the main reason I bought a ticket for NOLA Storycon

• Attended the very first Kinky In Kansas City Romance Author convention and met some other  new favorite authors and hot cover models.

Jonny James (cover model)

Amy Daws

Kayti McGee

• Got to be a volunteer at Apollycon in Orlando and meet other favorite authors (as well as other hot cover models)!!!!  While there, I also got to visit the Harry Potter park at Universal Studios.

Kylie Scott

Anna Todd, the main reason I first signed up to be an ApollyCon volunteer

All the hot cover models from JLA's books, along with JLA herself!

Butter Beer, the first thing I HAD to get at Universal Studios

• In November I won NaNoWriMo for the 2nd time!  I didn't finish my novel that I'd started, but I am still working on it.
• I also got a couple cool sponsors for my blogs, one was UberPrints.com - who let me design a free t-shirt to show how easy and fun it is.  The other was USB Memory Direct, and I got some cool USB drives to pass out as business cards with my blog design in them.   
  
  
  
  
   
• I got to meet so many more authors than what I showed you above.  I got a trip to New Orleans for NOLA StoryCon, a trip to Orlando for Apollycon, but I also visited Albuquerque, New Mexico for a school related conference, and went to back Orlando with my family - specifically to see my 5 year old niece's first time at Disneyworld.
  
  Not all things were great though.  I did lose a friend.  My former writing buddy, one that I've shared her self-published books here on my blog in past Blogoversaries, as well as my own reviews.  She didn't like the way I reviewed her books, but didn't bother to read the reviews once I sent her a link, waited months afterward when someone else pointed them out.  Anyway, it's a long story, and time for me to move on.  And then last month, stupid Photobucket changed how they worked, and now my background and other things on my blog are all messed up. The problem is that someone designed it all for me, and I can't get ahold of them through email or any way anymore, so I don't know how to fix it!
  
  Since it is my 8th Blogoversary, I want to give away 8 prizes.  Here are the options:
  
  
  1. Your choice of any Alice Clayton book under $10 from The Book Depository (INT)
  2.  Any of the mass market copies of the Stage Dive series by Kylie Scott (TBD) (INT)
  3. Two winners will get to pick 2-3 books from my Books for Trade pile.  Here is the  most recent photo, although there may be more or different books there by the end of the month. US only, sorry, I can only afford so much postage.
     
     
  4.   E-book copies of two of my favorite books by a new favorite author Nicole Archer:  Road-Tripped and Head-Tripped. (Open to anyone who can accept a Kindle or Nook e-book)
     
     
  5. $5.00 Amazon Gift Card or Barnes and Noble if you'd prefer
  6. Coloring Book (US only, sorry, I can only afford that postage) 
     
  7. Samplers and Swag - Swag not pictured (US only, postage is too expensive) 
     
  8. Your choice of any book I've read since last September from The Book Depository. (INT) Check out those books on my Goodreads page, just scroll back till you get all the way to last September to get an idea of what books, it is a lot to choose from!  
  
  
  Just fill out the Rafflecopter below to enter.  And even if you don't want to enter, I'd love to get a comment from you below!
  
   

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Three Kylie Scott Book Mini-Reviews

As I mentioned earlier this week, getting behind on reviews again.  This time I've got three books by the author that is pretty much becoming one of my all time top favorite authors.  One is one of her first books, the second is the latest in her Dive Bar series, and the last one is her first YA novel, where I must say she has done a great job breaking into that genre!  Of course I have to share my photo with her from Apollycon this past March, when I made sure to tell her that Mal was my book boyfriend!

Flesh (Flesh series #1):

Published:  October 1st, 2012
Source:  Purchased Paperback
My rating:  3.5 stars

I do love The Walking Dead, and so a zombie apocalypse story told by one of my favorite authors was an instant add to my TBR.  The romance in this is pretty much what you might expect to be realistic in this type of a world, something that most of the time is kind of skirted over in TWD world, except for maybe with Negan.  The characters are definitely interesting enough you want to read more about them, and while there is another book in the series, that is pretty much a standalone, I'm still eager to read it.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Ali has been hiding in an attic since civilisation collapsed eight weeks ago.


When the plague hit, her neighbours turned into mindless, hungry, homicidal maniacs.


Daniel has been a loner his entire life. Then the world empties and he realises that being alone isn't all it's cracked up to be.


Finn is a former cop who is desperate for companionship, and willing to do anything it takes to protect the survivors around him.


When the three cross paths they band together; sparks fly, romance blooms in the wasteland and Ali, Daniel and Finn bend to their very human needs in the ruins of civilisation.


Lust, love and trust all come under fire in Flesh as the three battle to survive, hunted through the suburban wastelands.

This story is rated "Hot" (4 out of 5 flames) and contains M/F/M and F/M pairings.  

Twist (Dive Bar series #2):

Published:  April 11th, 2017
Source:  Purchased paperback
My rating:  4 stars

While I didn't love these characters as much as I did Vaughn and Lydia from Dirty, they were characters that still grabbed me and made it really hard for me to put the book down.  I read this in May, and hated that I still had to get up for school in the morning, because it is a book I would have stayed up all night reading, it was that good.  And what is even better?  Well there was a definite twist towards the end that I did not see coming.  Perfect to fit in with that title, huh?  

Now, I ordered the UK version of the cover, because I liked the guy on it better, even if he doesn't look like what Joe is supposed to look like.  However, I later won a contest, I think on Goodreads, for another copy of the book, this time with the US cover version.  I don't usually collect different country books, but with Scott's books, I kind of want to.  The first cover you see to the left, is the UK version.  The one at the bottom of this mini-review is the US version. 

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

When his younger brother loses interest in online dating, hot, bearded, bartender extraordinaire, Joe Collins, only intends to log into his brother's account and shut it down. Until he reads about her - Alex.

Alex Parks is funny, friendly, and pretty much everything he's been looking for in a woman. And in no time at all they're emailing up a storm, telling each other their deepest darkest secrets . . . apart from the one that really matters.

And when it comes to love, serving it straight up works better than with a twist.





Trust:

Published:  July 18th, 2017
Source:  E-galley from Netgalley
My rating:  5 stars

Kylie Scott's first YA novel is perfection.  She's got the realistic characters, the chubby main character girl, the bad boy, who really is a bad boy, the bullies, the old best friend who doesn't get it, and the new best friends who are extremely wonderfully written diverse characters.  This is one that I was barely able to put down.  I took it on vacation to Disneyworld with me and I couldn't wait to get back to my hotel room to continue reading.  I totally connected to the main character, Edie, within the first part of the book when she was at the gas station and could barely make eye contact with the cute sales clerk.  I have the same issues with talking to the "pretty people" as she puts it, and this is a problem quite often for me when I'm working the cash registers at my part time job and a hot guy comes up.  I can't seem to make eye contact or do much more than say exactly the basic sales things I need to say.  I really loved all of this, especially Edie's new friends, including John's best friend.  I hate that this is a standalone book since I would love to go back and visit all of these characters again!  I do think maybe the cover is a little bit risque or adult for a YA book, that's probably the only downfall I can see at all.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Being young is all about the experiences: the first time you skip school, the first time you fall in love…the first time someone holds a gun to your head.

After being held hostage during a robbery at the local convenience store, seventeen-year-old Edie finds her attitude about life shattered. Unwilling to put up with the snobbery and bullying at her private school, she enrolls at the local public high school, crossing paths with John. The boy who risked his life to save hers.

While Edie’s beginning to run wild, however, John’s just starting to settle down. After years of partying and dealing drugs with his older brother, he’s going straight—getting to class on time, and thinking about the future.

An unlikely bond grows between the two as John keeps Edie out of trouble and helps her broaden her horizons. But when he helps her out with another first—losing her virginity—their friendship gets complicated.

Meanwhile, Edie and John are pulled back into the dangerous world they narrowly escaped. They were lucky to survive the first time, but this time they have more to lose—each other.

Check out my post on the book trailer.