Lisa's Looking Foward to #7 - February 26th, March 5th, and March 12th, 2019

So the next couple weeks either only have 1 book, or maybe 2, so I'm going to do three weeks worth of new releases.

From my ARC list for February 26th:

Of course, beautiful cover, and it sounds really good.  Plus I've been seeing it all over the blogosphere from the lucky people who got ARCs of it.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
After unwittingly helping her mother poison King Louis XIV, seventeen-year-old alchemist Mirabelle Monvoisin is forced to see her mother’s Shadow Society in a horrifying new light: they’re not heroes of the people, as they’ve always claimed to be, but murderers. Herself included. Mira tries to ease her guilt by brewing helpful curatives, but her hunger tonics and headache remedies cannot right past wrongs or save the dissenters her mother vows to purge.

Royal bastard Josse de Bourbon is more kitchen boy than fils de France. But when the Shadow Society assassinates the Sun King and half the royal court, he must become the prince he was never meant to be in order to save his injured sisters and the petulant Dauphin. Forced to hide in the derelict sewers beneath the city, any hope of reclaiming Paris seems impossible—until Josse’s path collides with Mirabelle’s, and he finds a surprising ally in his sworn enemy.

She's a deadly poisoner. He's a bastard prince. Together, they form a tenuous pact to unite the commoners and former nobility against the Shadow Society. But can a rebellion built on mistrust ever hope to succeed?



From my ARC list for March 5th:

I don't know, any time I see Manic Pixie Dream, I want to read it.  I don't know why.  

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
Riley lives in TropeTown, where everyone plays stock roles in novels. Riley, a Manic Pixie Dream Boy, is sent to group therapy after going off-script. Riley knows that breaking the rules again could get him terminated, yet he feels there must be more to life than recycling the same clich�s for readers' entertainment. Then he meets Zelda, a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Geek Chic subtype), and falls head over heels in love. Zelda's in therapy too, along with several other Manic Pixies. But TropeTown has a dark secret, and if Riley and his fellow Manic Pixies don't get to the bottom of it, they may all be terminated. 

I have a contact now with Simon and Schuster.  She used to be at another publisher, and this is the type of book she would have emailed to ask if I was interested in.  I'm hoping in the future I'll get on the list for those with her new  publisher, although now I'm missing a contact at Disney and am missing out on books there it seems.    Also, beautiful cover, besides how good it sounds!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
At night, Las Mal Criadas own these streets.

Nalah leads the fiercest all-girl crew in Mega City. That roles brings with it violent throw downs and access to the hottest boydega clubs, but the sixteen-year-old grows weary of the life. Her dream is to get off the streets and make a home in the exclusive Mega Towers, in which only a chosen few get to live. To make it to the Mega towers, Nalah must prove her loyalty to the city's benevolent founder and cross the border in a search for a mysterious gang the Ashé Ryders. Led by a reluctant guide, Nalah battles other crews and her own doubts, but the closer she gets to her goal, the more she loses sight of everything—and everyone— she cares about.

Nalah must do the unspeakable to get what she wants—a place to call home. But is a home just where you live? Or who you choose to protect?


From my ARC list for March 12th

Okay, as soon as you read the blurb below, you'll understand why this one sounds so good!  And then, that cover?!  How could you not be drawn to it!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:
Pan's Labyrinth meets The Hazel Wood in this novel about a girl with terrifying visions and a wish-granting witch whose lives collide in the most unexpected of ways.

The waking forest has secrets. To Rhea, it appears like a mirage, dark and dense, at the very edge of her backyard. But when she reaches out to touch it, the forest vanishes. She's desperate to know more--until she finds a peculiar boy who offers to reveal its secrets. If she plays a game.

To the Witch, the forest is her home, where she sits on her throne of carved bone, waiting for dreaming children to beg her to grant their wishes. One night, a mysterious visitor arrives and asks her what she wishes for, but the Witch sends him away. And then the uninvited guest returns.

The strangers are just the beginning. Something is stirring in the forest, and when Rhea's and the Witch's paths collide, a truth more treacherous and deadly than either could ever imagine surfaces. But how much are they willing to risk to survive?     


Final Thoughts:
Have you read any of these?  Were you one of the lucky ones to get an ARC of any of these?  Do you have contacts with certain publishers that you look forward to hearing from?  Will you be adding any to your TBR list?  And hey, while you're visiting, go check out my weekly giveaway on my Clear Your TBR post HERE. 

ARC Review: Little White Lies by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Book info:

Title:  Little White Lies
Author:  Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Genre:  YA Mystery
Release Date:  November 6th, 2018
Publisher:  Disney/Freeform
Source:  Physical ARC received from publisher for review, which did not influence my opinion.
My rating: 4 stars

Synopsis:
"I'm not saying this is Sawyer's fault," the prim and proper one said delicately. "But."

Eighteen-year-old auto mechanic Sawyer Taft did not expect her estranged grandmother to show up at her apartment door and offer her a six-figure contract to participate in debutante season. And she definitely never imagined she would accept. But when she realizes that immersing herself in her grandmother's "society" might mean discovering the answer to the biggest mystery of her life-her father's identity-she signs on the dotted line and braces herself for a year of makeovers, big dresses, bigger egos, and a whole lot of bless your heart. The one thing she doesn't expect to find is friendship, but as she's drawn into a group of debutantes with scandalous, dangerous secrets of their own, Sawyer quickly discovers that her family isn't the only mainstay of high society with skeletons in their closet. There are people in her grandmother's glittering world who are not what they appear, and no one wants Sawyer poking her nose into the past. As she navigates the twisted relationships between her new friends and their powerful parents, Sawyer's search for the truth about her own origins is just the beginning.

Set in the world of debutante balls, grand estates and rolling green hills, Little White Lies combines a charming setting, a classic fish-out-of-water story, and the sort of layered mystery only author Jennifer Lynn Barnes can pull off.

My Review:
This is my first book by this author, other than a short story she had in the anthology called Enthralled:   Paranormal Diversions.   I don't remember which story was hers, however.  Anyway, this story was presented to me as a mix of Gilmore Girls and Pretty Little Liars gone Southern.  I'm not a reader or watcher of either of those, but I understand the general gist of what they are about.  The synopsis was intriguing for sure.  And when I picked it up, I was sucked right into the story.  There were a lot of twists and turns in this, the final twist being a huge one out of nowhere!  I loved that!

Sawyer's snarkiness, especially her take as she was dropped into this debutante world, was one of my favorite parts of the story.  The characters were all great in this as well.  Not only were our four main debutante characters given incredible back stories, but all of them were even made so that you could feel sympathy for them, even if they came across as ruthless or villains at first.  

The book switched between the present, where the four girls, Sawyer, Lily, Sadie-Grace, and Campbell were all in a jail cell; and the past starting when Sawyer first was brought into the midst of all this intrigue and wealthy people.  The present portions are kind of told from the viewpoint of one of the police officers, Mackie.  Like him, I spent the book reading to find out just which of the felonious actions the girls made landed them in that cell.  When you find out just how it happened, it is a little bit surprising and comical.  

While this may be my first time with the author, I have had her books in my library for my students to check out.  Not only will I be adding this one with budget money, I will now be able to personally recommend her books based on my own enjoyment of them.  I look forward to reading more from Jennifer Lynn Barnes as well  If you like a good mystery, and enjoy lots of twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat as you read, this is the next book you need to pick up! 
 

YA Review: The Shadow Queen by CJ Redwine

I was lucky enough to get this book through the booksfortrade deal with another blogger, although I also originally downloaded it as an e-galley from Edelweiss thanks to Balzer and Bray.  It's one I was really excited for.  I finally got around to reading it a little late though, I got behind on some review books. But when I finally picked it up I really did end up enjoying it.  It's the first book I've read by this author, and I'm also excited that there will be a sequel.  I do enjoy fairy tale retellings and I liked this one that was inspired by Snow White. 

There are two main characters in this.  First is Lorelai, who should really be the princess, but she had to run away to escape her stepmother, the queen, before she was killed.  Along with her brother Leo, and Gabril, the head of the palace guard before her father was killed by her stepmother Irina, she has been on the run.  Trying to stay safe, but also to come up with a way to get back and take her kingdom back, Lorelai is trying to learn how to use magic in a way she can defeat Irina, and along the way she is trying to help out her subjects, hoping to get them on her side when she needs them.

The other main character is Kol, or you could go by his full name, Kolvanismir Arsenyevnek, I think I'll stick with Kol.  He is a prince in the kingdom of Eldr.  His lands are being overrun by ogres.  When we meet him, Kol has just been kicked out of school for a prank.  He's at home partying with his friends, waiting for his father, mother and older brother to return from the battle front where their army is fighting the ogres.  Now there is something unusual about Kol, you see his people are dragons.  At some times they're human, other times they're dragons.  Their bodies change back and forth.  They have two hearts, one for the dragon and one for the human part of them.  Kol gets bad news, and he must now take over as the king of his land.  He can't seem to think of a way to get rid of the ogres without magic, and so he feels he must go and try to make a deal with Irina, her magic for food that his land can provide for her people.

Kol and his two best friends head into Lorelai's land.  They get into one small village, and their nice clothing sets the villagers after them, being poor, they can only see what they might be able to get from these strangers.  Lorelai and her brother and friend just happen to be in the same village, and they end up saving Kol and his friends from the angry villagers.

When Kol gets to Irina, he finds that instead of wanting his food, alls he wants is him to find Lorelai and bring her heart back.  Now Kol never got Lorelai's name, so it isn't until they attack and cause a major tragedy for Lorelai, that he soon learns who she is, and that he cannot kill her.

But Irina has built in wards for just this type of betrayal situation.  And it will be those things that will cause Lorelai and Kol to fight both for their own lives, as well as each other.

There was a very interesting take on the fairy tale in this story.  The dragon parts actually made me think a bit about the Sleeping Beauty Disney movie.  But other than that, Kol became the perfect huntsman for the Snow White story.  Irina was a perfect wicked stepmother/evil queen.  Lorelai was a Snow White more like Snow in the tv show Once Upon a Time, than like the one in the Disney story, because she was pretty kick-ass.  There are some very sad parts, a bit of a love story, but not too much over the story, I like how the author wove the romance through the story. 

Review: Far From You by Tess Sharpe

Thanks to the Disney Summer of Chills for sending me an ARC of this title.  I can say for sure that Disney's books they're promoting with this are so far all winners from what I've read, and I actually haven't even read the one I was most excited about!

I believe this is the author's first book, and wow, what a great book!  Once again I'm learning that I really can enjoy a mystery.  This book kept me guessing all along on who it might be.  But never really gave false clues, and I only knew what the main character knew.  I think the relationship in the book was one I somewhat guessed at by little things, and was pleased when it turned out to be the way I thought it was.

The main character is Sophie Winters.  Her life has been hard.  When she was fourteen, she was in a car with her best friend Mina, being driven by Mina's brother Trev.  Unfortunately there is a car accident, and while Trev and Mina make it out with just a few scratches, Mina, who did not have her seat belt on wasn't so lucky.  Her leg was messed up very badly, and she had scars all over her body.  Thanks to the wreck she had to have years of physical therapy, and of course there were pain pills involved, leading Sophie to an Oxy addiction.  Mina and Sophie are so close, and Mina is very worried and notices how much Sophie is really using the drugs.  When her parents find out, they send Sophie to stay with her Aunt Macy to get clean.  She comes back after about 6 months, clean, and ready to stay clean.  But then, she and Mina stop in the woods because Mina wants to get some information about a case she is investigating, and they are attacked by a masked man.  This time Sophie is the lucky one, in that she is just knocked on the head, while Mina is shot and killed.  When Sophie is finally found by a girl who lives somewhat nearby, the police find drugs in her jacket, and so it is assumed that it was a drug deal gone bad, even though Sophie swears that she is still clean.  She begs and pleads to be believed, but her parents don't.  So she is shipped off to rehab.  When she gets out of rehab, she comes back, and the one thing she plans to do is find out who killed Mina.  It is a rough road ahead of Sophie, as she has many enemies now, people who believe the drug story, and blame her for Mina's death.

Such a great story, loved it.  The characters were all really well written, and had a lot of depth.  You felt for them, and some you hated.  But it was in a way that just made the story even better.  I hope you get a chance to read this, as I'll be definitely promoting it, and probably buying it for my high school library where I work.

All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

Before I get too far into my gushing about how much I loved this book, let me thank who made it possible for me to read an e-galley of it, Netgalley of course, and then Disney Publishing also.  Obviously I've told you before about how I used to be a science teacher, and how I love science fiction because of that.  I've also always been a fan of time travel.  Partly because some of it intrigues me, like all the paradox things.  I figure you'd always have to go ahead in time, because if you went back in time, you could mess things up, like in A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury.  That was my first book I think that clued me in to this issue.  Then of course The Time Machine by H.G.  Wells, was another book I'd read that I learned about this same issue.  And of course, one of the best time travel movies (or just best movies) of all time, Back to the Future.  Now while I've heard some people lately talking about how they didn't like the 2nd movie in that series, I have to disagree, because I feel like it really showed all those bad things that could happen.  Some clues in that movie though, that work with this book, is that seeing yourself doesn't seem to really cause a huge explosion or something terrible to happen.  While the book started out and I was unsure if I would be so into it, that didn't last long.  I immediately got into what was going on, and rooting for the main characters, Em and Finn.  When the book starts, they are in two cells right next to each other.  They can hear each other, but not see each other.  Hearing each other means they can hear when the other is getting tortured, which is part of the torture of the Doctor and the Director, the two evil people they are trying to change the world because of.  Then we jump to a girl named Marina, and her best friend James, who she also has a crush on, and he is also a Congressman's brother.  The relationship between her and James, and even the bit of animosity between her and James's new best friend, Finn.  Once things start happening, I began to realize that Finn must be Finn from the future, and Em, well, that must be Marina.  I believe the cover of the book, while obviously it is a clock/time piece of some sort, it also reminded me of the drain that Em/Marina was so obsessed with at the beginning of the book that was in her cell.  The drain turned out to have a clue in it.  A paper her future self (or maybe that was her past self?) had left that listed all the ways they'd gone back in time to fix what was happening, and how all of them were crossed out because they'd failed.  The last thing left says the only option left is "to kill him".  They don't want to do it, but Em and Finn go back to the past to try to fix it, and while they're supposed to kill the Doctor before he becomes the Doctor, it is not quite so easy.  You see the Doctor, is James.  And he will create the time machine, that he will then use to "make the world a better place."  Only the things he does don't always lead to a better future.  And some of the things he does, well, while less people die because of him, there are still innocent lives lost, and it makes the future world much worse than ours with security checks, and becomes a bit of a police state.
I have to say I was on the edge of my seat with this.  I could barely put it down to go do anything else, work, sleep, watch tv, etc.  I will be again ordering this for the library I work in as soon as I know I have the money to get it.  Now, while the ending was a bit ambiguous in knowing exactly how much had changed and whether it changed for the better or not, I still feel it ended well.  I think this was the perfect type of ending for this story.  I'm not sure I think there should be a sequel, although there is a part 2 listed for next year on Goodreads, and this says it is part of a series.  The writing was so good, that I will definitely be reading on when/if the sequel comes out, I just hope it will be as good as this one, and not mess up the story and how good it was in this first book.

The Lives We Lost (Fallen World #2) by Megan Crewe

Attention, there will be a few spoilers if you haven't read the first book yet!!  So read on with caution.
Once again I am thanking Netgalley, as well as Disney for letting me read the e-galley of this book.  I really like the publishers that let all the books in the series be available on Netgalley.  For a kind of selfish reason, when I get to read a book early like this, I hate when I have to wait for the next book in the series even longer, because I don't get it as an e-galley.
This book basically picks up where the first one, The Way We Fall, left off.  Kaelyn is not alone with her cousin Meredith.  But not completely, her friend Tessa is there.  And also, her new boyfriend, Gavin, who in the first book was one of the guys that did the runs to get the food deliveries from the mainland before they stopped being delivered, is also living there.  We learned about one of her best friends, Leo, in the first book.  He makes it back to town at the beginning of this book.  And also moves in with the little family.  Since Kaelyn's father passed away, she now is having the time to go through the box of his stuff she got from the hospital.  And she finds the keys to his lab that she thinks has a vaccine he was working on.  She gets in, finds it, reads his notes on it, and decides she must get it to their friend Nell at the hospital.  Nell is very excited to hear of the cure, but says there is no one left on the island that would be able to help with it.  So Kaelyn figures she must get it to the mainland for someone to help.  She plans at first to just take Leo and go.  We know that Kaelyn is immune, as well as Meredith.  But none of the others are.  Unfortunately a guy named Tobias shows up when they are leaving to tell them that some military people are going to bomb the island as they blame the whole virus outbreak on them. So all of them leave, to be safe.  Once on the other side, both Tessa and Leo are given two of the vaccines. Gavin refuses to take one.  And so their journey begins.  Tobias travels with them, bringing his vehicle, I'm thinking it's a Hum Vee?  And all the provisions and supplies he can.  Leo has warned them that even the mainland isn't what it used to be.  People are dangerous.  And in one of the first towns where they stop to get gas, they find out this is true.  When they walk back to their vehicle, it has been disabled, and now they must walk.  It's winter and snowy, so they find some sleds, and pack all their belongings on them to move.  But again they must hide away from the road so that these people don't come after them.  See, they let slip that they have a vaccine, and now that is all these other people want.
Along the way they do come across some friendly people at an old artists' colony.  These people are self sufficient, and even have a greenhouse.  Tessa ends up wanting to stay behind with the greenhouse, and because of the danger, Kaelyn wants Meredith to stay there and wait until they get back from either Toronto or wherever they must end up going to find help with this.

And so a new journey is set on.  With someone from the colony joining them.  And even we hear from Kaelyn's brother, not even sure how he got to where he is, but he still does his best to help her.

I won't go on anymore about the story.  Just to say that it does end on a bit more of a cliffhanger this time I feel.  Which is good.  Because now I'm even more eager to read on!  I really liked the kind of road trip in this story.  I love stories like that.  And I feel the way the towns and few people out there were, was pretty realistic.  A great story, and if you haven't read the first one, The Way We Fall, you need to go get it and be ready for when this comes out in February.