Cover Reveal: Diamonds are Forever (The Secret Diamond Sisters #3) by Michelle Madow

I am so excited to show off the cover for the final book in The Secret Diamond Sisters series by Michelle Madow.  I'm a huge fan of Michelle.  I loved her Transcend Time series.  I also remember her as really the first author I met my first year at BEA back in 2012.  She was standing in line in front of me for the Bloggers Convention day, and I recognized her and said hi.  I am still mad at myself for not getting a picture with her that day.  I also have yet to get a book of hers autographed, never have them when I've seen her.  Last summer I had just tweeted that I hoped I'd run into her and get a picture this time, and she walked by in the crowd! 

It was so neat.  I did get a picture this time, and she also told me that there was a character with my last name in the 2nd book, Diamonds in the Rough.  Very cool.  But anyway, back to the post at hand. 

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas … but that doesn’t matter when you live there. Sisterhood, first crushes and scandalous secrets explode in book three of Michelle Madow’s The Secret Diamond Sisters.

Title: Diamonds are Forever

Author: Michelle Madow

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance

Release Date: October 27, 2015

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Series: The Secret Diamond Sisters #3

Format: Print

ISBN: 978-0-37321-152-4

Synopsis:

It's cold outside, but the drama is hot!

The Diamond sisters jet to the mountains for spring break, and Savannah's flirt-mance with international pop star Perry Myles continues as her pursuit of stardom succeeds. But is it "meant to be" with Perry, or has the right guy been in front of her eyes this entire time? Meanwhile, Courtney takes the next step with her secret boyfriend—and future stepbrother—Brett…and with Adrian and Rebecca's wedding approaching, they feel more pressure than ever to reveal their relationship. Peyton might be figuring out a direction for her future, but she feels responsible for her bodyguard Jackson being fired, and wonders if the best way to find solace for her guilt is in the arms of someone else. But the biggest bombshell will change everything once again, because Madison's ready to tell the Diamond sisters the truth about the huge secret she's uncovered. And with Oliver, the boy who betrayed her but who could be the love of her life, in the hospital fighting for his own life, she might need the Diamonds more than ever.

Pre-order at: Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Book Depository  |  Books A Million  |  Goodreads

Other Books in the Secret Diamond Sisters Series:

Title: The Secret Diamond Sisters

Author: Michelle Madow

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance

Release Date: February 25, 2014

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Series: The Secret Diamond Sisters #1

Format: Print

ISBN: 978-0-37321-109-8

Synopsis:

Three sisters. One billionaire father. What could go wrong?

Savannah. Courtney. Peyton.

The three sisters grew up not knowing their father and not quite catching a break. But it looks like their luck is about to change when they find out the secret identity of their long-lost dad—a billionaire Las Vegas hotel owner who wants them to come live in a gorgeous penthouse hotel suite. Suddenly the Strip's most exclusive clubs are all-access, and with an unlimited credit card each, it should be easier than ever to fit right in. But in a town full of secrets and illusion, fitting in is nothing compared to finding out the truth about their past.

Buy Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books a Million | Book Depository | iBookstore | Goodreads

Title: Diamonds in the Rough

Author: Michelle Madow

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance

Release Date: October 28, 2014

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Series: The Secret Diamond Sisters #2

Format: Print

ISBN: 978-0-37321-136-4

Synopsis:

All-access doesn't mean no problems.

The three Diamond sisters survived the summer in style after coming to live with their long-lost billionaire father. But making a place for themselves at their exclusive new Las Vegas private school is throwing them any number of gold-plated curves. Savannah's YouTube stardom turns into a Sweet Sixteen reality show extravaganza—with complimentary enemies on the side. Dangerous flirtations don't keep Peyton from a gamble that will risk far more than she planned to bet. And when Courtney and the sisters' archenemy, Madison, uncover two explosive secrets, it will rock even this town of glittering illusion—and turn their lives upside down all over again.

Sisterhood, first crushes, and scandalous secrets explode in book two of Michelle Madow's riveting series, The Secret Diamond Sisters.

Buy Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books a Million | Book Depository | iBookstore | Goodreads

Praise for The Secret Diamond Sisters:

“Sexy and electrifying ... Gossip Girl meets The Princess Diaries in a city that never sleeps.” -Booklist

“This quick and entertaining read is filled with glitz and glamour ... get ready for one crazy and fabulous ride.” -RT Book Reviews

“I opened The Secret Diamond Sisters and was transported to Vegas … there was never a dull moment! It’s the helpless romantic's dream.” -LitPick Five Star Book Review Award

“Highly addictive! Hold on tight, because The Secret Diamond Sisters throws you head first into the Vegas fast lane. Three every day teens navigate the slippery slope of wealth, popularity, and too much freedom, along with family drama, cat fights, and more gorgeous guys than should be legal. A fun ride not to be missed!” – Rachel Harris, NYT Bestselling Author

“Michelle Madow has followed in the platinum heel-steps of Cecily Von Ziegesar (Gossip Girl), Sara Shepard (Pretty Little Liars) and Ally Carter (Heist Society) in what seems like the first season of the Diamond girls’ romantic, shocking and lavish lives.” —Nathan Siegel, Goodreads Reviewer

“Boasting juicier secrets, more extravagant luxury, and higher stakes consequences, Michelle Madow has shown that in her world of decadently sinful Las Vegas nothing is as it seems, and all bets are off.” -Glass of Wine Reviews

Author Bio:

Michelle Madow wrote her first novel, Remembrance, in her junior year of college. Remembrance is the first book in The Transcend Time Saga, a three part series about reincarnation and true love that Michelle successfully self-published. The series was inspired by Taylor Swift's "Love Story" music video. Michelle's latest YA series, The Secret Diamond Sisters, about three sisters who discover they are the secret heirs to a Las Vegas billionaire casino owner, was published in March 2014 by Harlequin Teen. The second book in the series, Diamonds in the Rough, released in November 2014, and the third book, Diamonds are Forever, will be coming out in November 2015. Michelle is active on social media networks and has toured across America to promote her books and encourage high school students to embrace reading and writing.

Michelle lives in Boca Raton, Florida, where she is writing more novels for young adults. She loves reading, spending time with family and friends, traveling the world, shopping, Disney fairy tales, Broadway musicals, and loves talking with fans on Facebook (/MichelleMadow), Twitter (@MichelleMadow), and Instagram (@MichelleMadow).

To chat with Michelle and other fans about her books, join Michelle Madow's Street Team on Facebook!

Connect with Michelle:  Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Instagram  |  Goodreads

Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

First of all, thanks to Bloomsbury USA Children's Books and Netgalley for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  This is my first book by this author. The other series by her just never quite grabbed me to even pick up. Even when I did get an ARC of the first or second one, I forget, the first time I went to BEA in 2012.  This one did intrigue me with my current infatuation with all things fairy tale retelling.  I have to say I really enjoyed this one, and will maybe even give the other series a try if I get the time!  I have seen some not so great reviews, just a few, and I feel like I want to counter all their bad things, but I will step back from that, and just tell what I really liked.  At least I'll try.

The main character is Feyre, a name that my tongue did trip over every once in awhile, but a name that I do really like.  She's 19 years old and lives with her two older sisters and her father.  Her mother died from a sickness a while back.  Her father lost his living and all their possessions with some risky deals, and now they live in a shack.  He is unable to do much for them because the creditors broke his leg and beat him really bad. Since then he's just carved wooden things and pretty much left it all up to Feyre to take care of the family.  She learned to hunt in order to get food for her family, as well as to sell what she didn't need to the villagers in order to get money for the things they had to buy.  Her two older sisters are kind of ungrateful and don't seem to appreciate Feyre for all that she does.  The story begins in a winter time, and food/prey is scarce, so she must travel farther from the house for any game.  She has heard of strange, huge wolves and other creatures in the forest lately, and knows they could be faeries.  While she is good with a bow and arrow, a faerie is not easy to kill.  It would take a special kind of arrow, made of ashwood, in order to kill one.  There was a time that faeries enslaved and tortured the humans, but a long time before Feyre was born, a treaty was reached, and for the most part they stay in their own lands.  Anyway as she is out hunting she finds a deer finally.  But she's not the only one.  A giant wolf is also sizing up the deer.  She must decide what to do.  But she also wonders if the wolf could be a faerie.  But she decides that her family needs the deer, and the wolf isn't a faerie, and so she shoots the wolf, and then the deer. 

She brings home the wolf and deer after she's skinned and taken what she needs.  The next day she takes what she can sell to the market in town where she meets a faerie hunter, and learns that there have been reports of even worse things out there.  When she gets home, there is a sudden tearing off of the door and a monstrous creature, who is also a fae has arrived to take revenge for the wolf she killed, that was a friend/emissary of his.  He says that the treaty states a life for a life.  He offers her either a quick death here, or she can come and live the rest of her life with him in the faerie land, Prythian.  Tamlin is the fae who takes her back to live on his estate.  He doesn't make her do anything.  No chores, no slavery, no nothing.  Just feeds her and has her live there.  When she mentions that she can't stay forever, she must figure a way to get back, he tells her not to worry, her family is being taken care of. 

For the most part he is a gentleman, never really cruel in any way.  She grows to like him, and have feelings for him.  She learns of a blight in their land, one that she tries to find a way to help with, as well as wondering if she'll have to worry about her family dealing with it.  Turns out in the end that the blight isn't quite what it seems or what she's been told.  Not to mention that many things humans believe of faeries is not the truth.  In the end when faced with being able to just go back and live with her family, she will wonder if Tamlin still needs her, and she must decide whether to go back to help him, and what she would be willing to risk her life for or how to do that in order to save him.

I loved the story.  Tamlin was great.  I don't feel like it was insta-love.  I feel like the romance developed pretty well, especially for the type of situation it was.  Although with what Feyre finds out about the blight, I'm surprised she didn't wonder more about Tamlin's feelings for her at the end.  I like that she does leave in order to try to save him, but when she comes back to try to rescue him, she doesn't do anything that could make it harder for him when she is there.  I liked Lucien, and even Rhysander was a good character from the end.  The villain was perfect, and the trials also perfect.  As I said, a great story, and I can't wait to read the next book and find out what will happen with the "deal with the devil" that Feyre made towards the end of this one in order to save her own life so that she could finish the trials to save Tamlin.

Sunday Post #25 and Stacking the Shelves May 3rd, 2015

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted  @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news ~ A post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme.


Last Week on the Blog:

• Review:  Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge
•  A to Z Challenge:  W Reviews, X Reviews, Y Reviews, Z Reviews
• Review:  Undertow by Michael Buckley
• Cover Reveal:  Implanted (Ascension #2) by Heather Letto
• Book Blitz:  White Raven by J.L. Weil and Giveaway
• Cover Characteristic:  Yellow Covers

So I made it all the way through the A to Z Challenge!  Yay!  I'm kinda glad to be done though.  Back to my normal blogging, and being able to do some of my regular meme type posts again.  Besides those mini-reviews, I still got two other reviews done during the week.  I did not get any post done last Sunday though, so today's Stacking the Shelves is probably going to be pretty long!

This Week on the Blog:

• Review:  A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• Book Blitz:  Halfway Perfect by Julie Cross and Mark Perini
• Cover Reveal:  Diamonds are Forever by Michelle Madow
• Waiting on Wednesday
• Book Blitz:  Ghosts of July by Megan Applegate
• Possible Reviews:  Ice Kissed (Kanin Chronicles #2) by Amanda Hocking or Cleo by Lucy Coats

A pretty busy week coming up!  There's actually one other egalley I might try to get read this week, but haven't decided which egalley sounds best yet.  I've got to get some reading done and I'm really trying to get all my Netgalley books read on time. But since I download them to my Kindle app, and they never really expire that way, it's hard to not jump ahead to the Edelweiss galleys that will expire. So the books I read this week may change due to that.

My Fit/Walking Goal: 
Well, last week was not good.  I had a few days where I got 10,000 steps in, but it was only because of working at the bookstore.  I just didn't get out to walk as much as I'd have liked to.  One nice thing, at our Wednesday afternoon professional development meeting this past week, we got to go outside and so I got a mile walked around the school track that day.  I did learn that maybe I'll just bring my walking clothes and get my walking in at school before I head home, so that I don't have the excuses to not walk once I get home.  I also found a Run, Walk, Run program I might try to see if maybe at some point I can get to running.  I don't know how I'll get 20 miles a week in during the school year right now, just too many things going on.  But I'd like to try to at least get out and walk for at least a half hour 3 days a week.  

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.  It is a way for us to share the new books we have collected.  Now, keep in mind that what I list below is for the last two weeks.  So it is a lot!

E-galleys:

All but the last two are from Edelweiss.  The last two come from Netgalley.  I've got to hurry up and read my ARC of The Messenger of Fear by Michael Grant so that I can read my egalley of The Tattooed Heart.  Very excited about all of these!  

Physical Books:

 The first one is a stripped cover from the bookstore where I work.  The second one was an unsolicited ARC from the publisher, Sourcebooks.  The last one is an ARC that I won from Brittany at Brittany's Book Rambles. 

Free e-books:

All free.  Will see when or if I get to them!

So, whew!  Too many added, who knows when I'll ever get to them!!  But they're there in case I get in the mood to read them.  What did you add to your shelves this week?

Now I'm off to walk today.  I'll be back to go comment on other blogs later today!

Cover Characteristic: Yellow Covers

The Cover Characteristic meme is hosted at  Sugar and Snark.   I missed a few fun ones in April as I did the A to Z Challenge, but am glad that I was able to do it.  Now I can start having some time to do fun memes like this again!  I had a lot to choose from this week, so I tried to narrow it down to just 5 as the guidelines say:


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!

Again these are books that I've already read, and I'm putting them in no particular order.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

There were several more I could have chosen, but I decided to just stick with these five.  What do you think of my choices?

Book Blitz: White Raven by J.L. Weil and Giveaway!

Book and Author Details:

White Raven by J.L. Weil
(Raven Series, #1)
Publication date: March 27th 2015
Genres: Paranormal Romance, Young Adult

Synopsis:

DREADFUL LIES.
UNEXPECTED LOVE.
IMPOSSIBLE TRUTH.

It only took one heartbeat to change my life—one chilling phone call in the middle of the night.

And then, as if my life didn’t already suck, my dad sends my brother and me to some idyllic island for the summer to live with a grandma we never met. WTH. Naturally, I rebel. In the end, I find myself shipped off to Raven Hallow…and bored to tears.

Until I get an eyeful of the mind-bendingly gorgeous Zane Hunter. The dark-hair cutie makes my pulse go bonkers, and I think, maybe this might not be so bad after all. Six feet of swoon inducing looks, with a hint of Celtic charm in his voice, he was the type of guy that left a string of broken hearts in his wake. And I had all the heartbreak I could handle.

Yet, there is something uncanny, almost supernatural about Zane, and it’s not just his devastating smirk. No matter how much distance I put between us, Raven Hallow isn’t big enough, and the sparking tension between is undeniable. Of course, the one person I want to avoid becomes my salvation.

My past comes back to terrorize me. Someone wants me dead, and the closer I get to the truth, the more I realize my whole life is a lie. I am no longer sure what is more frightening—the attempts on my life or the guy whose heart and soul are synchronized with mine.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22043058-white-raven?ac=1

Purchase:
--Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/White-Raven-book-J-L-Weil/dp/1508970866/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429829010&sr=8-1&keywords=White+Raven
--Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/white-raven-book-1-raven-series-jl-weil/1121638317?ean=2940151839297

AUTHOR BIO:

Award-winning and Bestselling author J.L. Weil writes Teen & New Adult Paranormal Romances about spunky, smart mouth girls who always wind up in dire situations. For every sassy girl, there is an equally mouthwatering, overprotective guy. Of course there is lots of kissing. And stuff.

Most of her books are for ages 16+. They usually have what she considers the good stuff - sexual content (oh yeah) and swearing. You have been warned ;)

An admitted addict to Love Pink clothes, raspberry mochas from Starbucks, (yum!) and Jensen Ackles (double yum!). She loves gushing about books and Supernatural with her readers.





Author Links:
http://jlweil.blogspot.ca/
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/jenniferlweil
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/jlweil
Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5831854.J_L_Weil

Blitz-wide giveaway (US/CAN):

a Rafflecopter giveaway