Heaven vs. Hell or Promo Post and Giveaway for Lifeblood (Everlife #2) by Gena Showalter

Book info:

Title:  Lifeblood  
Author:  Gena Showalter
Series:  Everlife #2  
Genre:  YA Fantasy
Published:  February 28th, 2017

Synopsis:

"My Firstlife is over, but my Everlife is only now beginning."
With her last living breath, Tenley "Ten" Lockwood made her choice and picked her realm in the Everlife. Now, as the war between Troika and Myriad rages, she must face the consequences.
 
Because Ten possesses a rare supernatural ability to absorb and share light, the Powers That Be have the highest expectations for her future—and the enemy wants her neutralized. Fighting to save her Secondlife, she must learn about her realm from the ground up while launching her first mission: convincing a select group of humans to join her side before they die. No pressure, right? 
 
But Ten's competition is Killian, the boy she can't forget—the one who gave up everything for her happiness. He has only one shot at redemption: beating Ten at a game she's never even played. As their throw-downs heat up, so do their undeniable feelings, and soon, Ten will have to make another choice. Love…or victory. 

Buy Links:
Amazon
Indie Bound
Barnes and Noble

Heaven vs. Hell:
So, if you've read this series, which I have, and I've loved, then you know that technically, the two places people have to choose between when they die aren't exactly heaven or hell.  There is Troika - which is the light, and Myriad - which is the dark.  So in a way, they kind of fit our ideas of heaven vs. hell.  Troika follows the rules and are "good" and live for others.  Myriad believes in enjoying things for yourself just because they are enjoyable.  So you can see the similarities between the two.  My post today is five reasons you might pick heaven based on the literary or tv/movie character vs. five examples of why you might pick hell.  


-->

Heaven	Hell
Castiel from Supernatural	Crowley from Supernatural  (Okay, maybe not "hot," but he makes me laugh)
Loki and Bartleby from Dogma	Roth from The Dark Elements series by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Jace from Shadowhunters - The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare	Dante Walker from the Dante Walker series by Victoria Scott
Daniel from Fallen series by Lauren Kate	Cam from Fallen series by Lauren Kate (although I don't know that I find this actor attractive or what I pictured when I read the books)
Patch from Hush, Hush series by Becca Fitzpatrick	Death/Aric from The Arcana Chronicles by Kresley Cole (I love Jackson too, but Death, sigh)

  So, all of those are my top 5 reasons I would be swayed to either side.  Now, in this Everlife series, I love Killian.  I love, love, love him!  I'm not quite finished with the book, should be finished in the next day or so, so look for my review of Lifeblood soon, but you can check out my review of the first book, Firstlife HERE.  

Author Bio:

Gena Showalter is the New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of the Intertwined Novels, the White Rabbit Chronicles, and the Everlife novels, among numerous novels for an adult audience as well. Her stories have been praised as “unputdownable.” Gena lives in Oklahoma with her family and a menagerie of dogs. Follow her on twitter @genashowalter and visit her website at genashowalter.com.

 
Author Twitter

Author website 
  





Giveaway:

• 2 signed sets of FIRSTLIFE and LIFEBLOOD (US Only) 

   a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:
Week 1:
3/6: Brittany's Book Rambles - Q&A
3/7: In Wonderland - Review
3/8: Reading Is Better With Cupcakes - Guest Post
3/9: Take Me Away To A Great Read - Review
3/10: Swoony Boys Podcast - Character Interview

Week 2:
3/13: Two Chicks On Books - Guest Post
3/14: Books Are Love - Review
3/15: Resch Reads and Reviews - Makeup Board
3/16: Here's to Happy Endings - Review
3/17: Lisa Loves Literature - Heaven vs. Hell - You are here!

Week 3:
3/20: Quite the Novel Idea - Review
3/21: The Irish Banana Review - Fast 5
3/22: Mundie Moms - Review
3/23: Megnificent Boks - Top 10
3/24: Owl Always Be Reading - Review

 

Cover Characteristic: Feathers

The Cover Characteristic meme is hosted at  Sugar and Snark.   Here are the guidelines:

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! 

Now this week was a little easier!  In fact, if I wanted to spend the time, I did come up with more than 10, but I'm going to save myself some time and just do the 5 that the instructions say to pick.  Here we go:

 5.

4.

3.

2.

1.  And my favorite!

Like I said, there were so many I could have chosen from. But these are my top 5!  Can you think of any other books with feathers on the cover?  What do you think of my choices?

Review: Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick

This is one book that I was lucky enough to get an ARC of at BEA this past summer.  And just like 2 years ago, the author had attractive guys walking around where she was signing, although unlike the angels from the Hush Hush series that were walking around with no shirts, these guys were fully dressed, so no pictures.  Another cool thing is that 2 years ago I got a t-shirt, this year she gave away a thermos bottle.  It was also while I was waiting in the line that I ran into author Michelle Madow, who I'd been really hoping to see.  But anyway, let's get on with my review, because I LOVED this book! 

To tell the truth, at first I wasn't sure I was going to like this one. I mean I loved the other series, and I figured part of that was because of the angels, the paranormal aspect.  And this is pretty much a contemporary setting, but a suspenseful mystery type.  And I now know that it must be the author's writing that I love, because once again I was grabbed and could barely put the book down to work or sleep.  Never mind eating, because I can read while I eat.  As I read this, I kept forming in my mind who these "bad guys" really were.  How did they link up to the little short bit at the beginning about one of the girls who was murdered.  How did they fit into the story with the other murdered girls.  And as we learned about the main characters, that even added in more possibilities of who everyone was and how they were related.  Okay, here's a quick summary of the story.

The main character is Britt.  She broke up with her boyfriend, her best friend's older brother Calvin, earlier in the school year.  So for her school break she has decided that she wants to backpack the Teton Range.  She's trained herself beforehand.  She's taking her best friend Korbie and they're staying at Korbie's family cabin.  Now Britt kind of has hope in the back of her mind that maybe Calvin will show up and want to go along.  And then she can show off to him how good she is now that she's trained and maybe he'll want to get back with  her.  When she runs into Calvin before she gets to pick Korbie up, she tries to make him jealous by pretending she has a boyfriend, and wouldn't you know it, a really cute guy walks into the gas station at that exact moment.  And he is nice enough to very smoothly play along.  So when Britt and Korbie get on their way, an unexpected blizzard starts, and they get a little lost on the road to the cabin.  Then they get a little bit stuck and decide they need to go find shelter.  They see a cabin nearby in their hiking, and go and knock on the door.  Surprisingly it is the boy from the gas station, Mason and another guy, Shaun.  Korbie sets her sight on Shaun, even though she really has a boyfriend.  But now Mason isn't as friendly and accommodating.  It's like he wants them to leave.  The two guys are acting pretty suspicious.  Especially when after they say that they'd planned to stay in the cabin for a few days to go skiing, Britt finds there isn't really any food there.  Soon Shaun and Mason show a scary side, by pulling out a gun and separating the girls.  They need Britt's help to get off the mountain.  She is able to convince Mason, who while not as friendly as before, still seems less crazy than Shaun, to leave Korbie behind in the cabin.  She figures that will at least give Korbie a chance to not die out in the freezing weather, as she knows her friend is not anywhere near as prepared as she thinks she is.  Along the way she tries to use  many lies and fake outs to save herself and get away.  Leading the boys to a ranger cabin, which unfortunately is not being used at the moment. But they're able to stay and eat some food.  It is here that things really start to go bad.  I won't list all that happens, just know that Britt begins to think that she wants Calvin back, will forgive him for anything to just have him come back and take care of her. 

This was just such a good story.  I seriously was left guessing who the real killer was until close to the end.  Oh, I had my theories, which turned out to be partially correct.  But the solution was really great, and I think it all tied up in a nice bow.  However, as much as I liked the real ending of the story, in a way I think it was a bit unrealistic.  How would people involved in the whole situation closely not know just who Mason was if they saw him, especially if they saw him around Britt.  But I like how it did go, and would hope it could really be that way.  This is a great standalone story, no trilogy here, no cliffhanger ending.  Just a perfect YA mystery story.  I don't think I got a picture with the author at BEA this year unfortunately.