Flashback Friday - August 22nd, 2014

Flashback Friday is hosted by Swoony Boy Podcasts and Fiction Fare, and it is a way to highlight the books that we read a while back, and may not have reviewed.  Here are the instructions:


Pick a book... any book that meets the following criteria: 

1.  Must have been published at least 2 years ago or
2.  Preferably is still in print or available to read

That's it!  Just grab the button and then after you post, link up!!!

Through Violet Eyes (Violet Eyes #1)

By:  Stephen Woodworth

Published:  August 31st, 2004

This is a book that I found while working part time at B. Dalton Bookstore.  And then I really enjoyed the series, although I feel like it ended before it was really finished.  There were four in the series, but I was left kind of hanging, and definitely I think there was more story to tell.  But overall it is a favorite series of mine, one that unfortunately I forget about when I'm suggesting books to others.  Below I've shared the cover and the synopsis from Goodreads.

In a world where the dead can testify against the living, someone is getting away with murder. Because to every generation are born a select few souls with violet-colored eyes, and the ability to channel the dead. Both rare and precious—and rigidly controlled by a society that craves their services—these Violets perform a number of different duties. The most fortunate increase the world's cultural heritage by channeling the still-creative spirits of famous dead artists and musicians. The least fortunate aid the police and the law courts, catching criminals by interviewing the deceased victims of violent crime.

But now the Violets themselves have become the target of a brutal serial murderer—a murderer who had learned how to mask his or her identity even from the victims. Can the FBI, aided by a Violet so scared of death that she is afraid to live, uncover the criminal in time? Or must more of her race be dispatched to the realm that has haunted them all since childhood? 

While you're here, don't forget to enter my 5th Blogoversary Giveaway, just click on the picture below.

And I also have a sign up for a Blog Hop and my September is for Sequels Challenge for you to sign up for with the buttons below.

Review: Of Monsters and Madness by Jessica Verday

First thanks to Egmont USA Publishing and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this book.  I have to say though that this was the 2nd book in a row that just didn't really catch and grab me as I read it.  The idea behind it was intriguing, so I finished it because it wasn't horrible, it just wasn't as good as it probably could have been.  Lots of things that didn't really get explained too well, and honestly, kind of boring, making it take me longer than it should have to finish it.

There have been a lot of retellings lately, most of them have been really good.  I thought the idea of this "retelling" or kind of alternate story about Edgar Allan Poe and his famous poem/story about Annabel Lee would be very unique.  And it was more than a retelling of that really.  It also included another classic story, but I don't want to give the story away by saying what it is here.  I  kind of guessed it as I first started, but wasn't sure exactly what was going on till closer to the end.

As I said, the main character is Annabel Lee and when her mother dies she travels to Philadelphia to live with her father and grandfather, neither of which she's met before.  She comes from Siam, and so the "big city" is so much different for her.  She is interested in medicine, after her mother taught her all about healing remedies.  But her father is a stickler for what is "proper".  And so tells her, no forbids her, to continue her interest in it.  He hires a tutor to teach her all the ways she should behave as a wealthy lady, and also to teach her languages like French.  The tutor seems to have a bad relationship with her father though.  And actually, her father isn't very likeable, he's very rude and hateful it seems to his daughter.  Her grandfather, or "Grandpere" is a much more loving person for her to come live with.  She also forms a friendship with Maddie, who is a maid, and also becomes her personal maid for dressing and such.  Her father has an assistant named Allan Poe.  He meets her at the dock when she arrives on the ship.  There is something about him that she finds very interesting, and he seems to be attracted to her as well.  He is a very polite gentleman, although he won't tell her what her father does in his laboratory in the basement of their house.  Annabel Lee arrives in Philadelphia to the news of a murder.  It seems there is a murderer at loose in the city.  There are many sinister characters around the house as well.  A new guard hired to walk around the estate at night to keep it safe.  And at night Annabel Lee runs into another of her father's assistants.  He is Allan's "cousin", and he is named Edgar Poe. Of course the murders soon seem to have a connection to her father, and so of course her curious mind leads her to kind of question things, and occasionally try to figure things out.

I don't feel she was a normal sleuthing kind of character, but she did do a bit of it.  Overall as I said at the beginning, there just wasn't that connection that I felt with other books that kept me reading constantly and I had no problem putting it down to do other things.  I finished it as quick as I could tonight just so I could move on to my next book which I am very excited about.  So I guess I would say I'm just not that big of a fan of this.  And it ended very abruptly, definitely there will have to be a sequel I would think.  But I will  not be back for a second installment.



While you're here, don't forget to enter my 5th Blogoversary Giveaway, just click on the picture below.

And I also have a sign up for a Blog Hop and my September is for Sequels Challenge for you to sign up for with the buttons below.

Waiting on Wednesday - The Cemetery Boys by Heather Brewer

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases that we're eagerly awaiting.   The book I've chosen this week is one that I'm going to be waiting on quite awhile as it is not supposed to be published until March of 2015.  I had hoped to get an ARC in time for my Blogoversary giveaway, but the author unfortunately didn't get as many as she'd hoped.  I had planned to read it of course, before I sent it on to a winner.  Heather Brewer is one of my favorite authors, but not only is she a great author, she is a great inspiration to many people.  If you follow her on Facebook, you can see just how much she reaches out to her fans (minions).  She shares her struggles and I think that makes her easier for teens to relate to. 

When Stephen is forced to move back to the nowhere town where his father grew up, he’s already sure he’s not going to like it. Spencer, Michigan, is like a town straight out of a Hitchcock movie, with old-fashioned people who see things only in black-and-white. But things start looking up when Stephen meets the mysterious twins Cara and Devon. They’re total punks–hardly the kind of people Stephen’s dad wants him hanging out with–but they’re a breath of fresh air in this backward town. The only problem is, Cara and Devon don’t always get along, and as Stephen forms a friendship with the charismatic Devon and something more with the troubled Cara, he starts to feel like he’s getting caught in the middle of a conflict he doesn’t fully understand. And as Devon’s group of friends, who hang out in a cemetery they call The Playground, get up to increasingly reckless activities to pass the summer days, Stephen worries he may be in over his head.

Stephen’s fears prove well-founded when he learns of Spencer’s dark past. It seems the poor factory town has a history of “bad times,” and many of the town’s oldest residents attribute the bad times to creatures right out of an urban legend. The legend goes that the only way the town will prosper again is if someone makes a sacrifice to these nightmarish creatures. And while Stephen isn’t one to believe in old stories, it seems Devon and his gang might put a lot of faith in them. Maybe even enough to kill for them.

Now, Stephen has to decide what he believes, where his allegiances lie, and who will really be his friend in the end.

It just sounds like such a great story once again by Heather Brewer.  What book are you eagerly awaiting this week?


While you're here, don't forget to enter my 5th Blogoversary Giveaway, just click on the picture below.

And I also have a sign up for a Blog Hop and my September is for Sequels Challenge for you to sign up for with the buttons below.

Review: Where She Went (If I Stay #2) by Gayle Forman

So after getting invited by a local indie bookstore to an advanced screening of the movie If I Stay, I decided I needed to hurry up and read the 2nd book in the series, so I was able to check it out from the high school library where I work.  Now, it wasn't exactly a book from Adam, Mia's boyfriend's, point of view during the time when Mia was in the hospital. Which is what I thought it was.  SPOILER ALERT It was actually what happened after she woke up.  If you've read the book, you know that it ends right at that point.  So the readers are left wondering what next.  How will she go on without her family, how will her relationship with Adam go on after the strain of her applying for Julliard?  And will she make it into Julliard?  The movie gives you the answer to that, as you will also know from this second book.

Adam's band Shooting Star has made it big.  We pick up with Adam three years after everything happened.  He's alone now, Mia went on to Julliard, and months after she left, she stopped calling or returning calls and texts.  And so Adam moved on, albeit not necessarily happily.  He's a bit of a mess.  He's had a falling out with his band, but not to the point that they're not together anymore.  He just always travels separately, and even stays in a different hotel than they do.  He's dating a movie star named Brynn now.  Even with all the fallout between the band members, they all have in a contract that they cannot talk about him and Mia in any way to reporters. And so far it's worked.  However Adam is still not happy, he misses Mia, but also has become superstitious, as well as very anxious, having to even take medicine for the anxiety. 

Where this book starts is Adam in New York City, having an interview, with someone who does ask him about Mia.  He throws a bit of a fit, and leaves.  The rest of the band has already flown to Europe for the next part of the tour, but he didn't want to fly on Friday the 13th, so his flight doesn't leave that day.  He wanders around NYC, hoping not to be noticed, when she sees a sign for a performance by Mia.  He buys a ticket and goes, he thinks incognito.  But he is recognized, and after the performance, Mia has someone ask him to come backstage.  This leads to them talking, and spending the next several hours together catching up.  In between the chapters of this, we have flashbacks where we find out just what happened to Adam, and how he developed all the issues he's suffering from. 

The book lets us follow along on this chance meeting to discover if their relationship will finally get closure, or if they might be back with the one they were always meant to be with.

A good read, not as good as the first, but still enjoyable.  It was hard to read just how far Adam had kind of fallen, and at first very hard to understand why Mia did what she did. But their conversations make it clear to Adam, and helps the reader to understand.  And the ending is a good one, one that you'll probably be wanting as you finish the book.  So I definitely recommend reading on, and do go see the movie.  It was so good I left with tears drying on my face.

Stacking the Shelves August 17th, 2014

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews. It is a way for us to share the new books we have collected. I've got several things to share, including one really big box that I picked up!


Book I won:

I won all this awesome stuff from Book Bite Reviews as part of the Christmas in July Giveaway Hop.

• ARC of The Walled City
• ARC of Black Ice
• ARC of Vampires of Manhattan
• ARC of All the Truth That's in Me
• ARC of Little Red Lies
• ARC of Never Come BAck
• ARC of The Moment of Everything
• ARC of Evil Librarian
• ARC of Counting by 7s
• Samplers of Let's Get Lost, Katniss the Cattail, and Tomboy
• A bunch of cool swag including bookmarks and buttons!

E-galley for review from Ya Reads Blog Tours:

 

E-galleys from Netgalley:

I'm very excited about the second one as I loved a book last year by the same author, CJ Lyons.  I tried to meet her at BEA this summer, but she wasn't at the booth when I was nearby, so I missed her.

99 cent e-book on Amazon:

 

Checked out from school library:

 I was lucky enough to get to go to an advanced screening this past week of the movie If I Stay, which was a book I read and loved.  But I hadn't gotten around to the sequel until seeing the movie made me really want to read on. So I am!  Should be done before I go to bed tonight, or maybe I could rephrase that as I will not go to sleep until I am finished.  

While you're here, don't forget to enter my 5th Blogoversary Giveaway, just click on the picture below.

And I also have a sign up for a Blog Hop and my September is for Sequels Challenge for you to sign up for with the buttons below.

Review: Cut Me Free by J.R. Johansson

I am a big fan of Johansson ever since I first read the copy of Insomnia that I won.  When I saw her post about how we could contact her publisher about possible getting an early e-galley of this title, Cut Me Free, I immediately had to contact and see about getting a copy. Then wouldn't you know it, they made it available on Netgalley, and I think maybe on Edelweiss as well.  This is a very intense story.  A lot of emotion in it, and at times a bit tough to read.

The main character is 17 year old Piper. At least she thinks she's 17, and she thinks her name is Piper, or it was. She starts the story by asking for a new identity, which gives her the name Charlotte.  Charlotte is on the run from her abusive parents, that she called The Mother and The Father. And it is not just that she's running to escape being abused.  She doesn't have to worry about that anymore, because she killed them when she was leaving.  She finally couldn't take it anymore when her younger brother Sam died because of them.  So now she's in a city and looking to disappear.  Piper never went to school, but she tried her best to teach herself with books and things her grandmother had given her.  Her grandmother tried to help her, until again Piper's parents left her to die from her cancer.

Piper/Charlotte goes to someone she's heard is the best for help.  And he just happens to be a pretty attractive boy named Cam.  Charlotte isn't big on people touching her, she's just barely used to being out in the open with lots of other people around. And she's still very paranoid that maybe her father didn't die, and maybe he is after her.  Cam helps her out with a new identity, and he wants to help her even more.  But she doesn't want to let him.  While she is out getting her new apartment, she sees a little girl that she can tell is dealing with abuse like she was.  And in her head, the voice of Sam, tells her that she has to help the girl.  But in helping the girl, Sanda, while she may be doing something to help quell her feelings of not being there to save Sam, she also may be letting another bad person into her life.  She sets the apartment on fire after knocking the guy out, and while she assumes he dies in the fire, again like with her father, she doesn't know for sure.

And the reason she thinks someone is still out there?  She starts getting little notes, and someone tries to break into her apartment.  The notes and other things left in her apartment seem to be only something a person from her past could leave because they are things that very few people would know.  So Charlotte must learn to be her new self, take care of Sanda, and deal with Cam and his seemingly supportive personality that is intrigued by her.

This is a very intense read.  The beginning was kind of hard to read, as you got to hear about some of the things Charlotte/Piper went through.  How her life was, and then finding out what Sanda has gone through, and feeling so sorry for this little girl.  You want so bad for Cam to be able to help her out, but it is easily understandable to see why Charlotte acts the way she does.  Even though as I read I kept saying in my head, try to trust him, just try!  This is a very realistic fiction with a very important theme, one that unfortunately is probably more true than any of us outside this type of a situation may know.

While you're here, don't forget to enter my 5th Blogoversary Giveaway, just click on the picture below.

And I also have a sign up for a Blog Hop and my September is for Sequels Challenge for you to sign up for with the buttons below.

Flashback Friday - August 15th, 2014

I  just saw this over on Fiction Fare and thought it sounded like a lot of fun!  I think this will be a way I feature books that I read before I started blogging, but that I really want to share with my readers.  Here are the instructions:


Pick a book... any book that meets the following criteria: 

1.  Must have been published at least 2 years ago or
2.  Preferably is still in print or available to read

That's it!  Just grab the button and then after you post, link up!!!

The Boy Next Door

By: Meg Cabot (as Meggin Cabot)

Published:  October 11th, 2002

This is a book I loved so much when I was really into my Chick Lit phase.  And for those who enjoyed Rainbow Rowell's Attachments, this is definitely comparable.  This story is told almost completely through emails, inter-department office memos, and if this is the right one I'm thinking of (it's been a while since I've read it) at least one part is even told from writing on a napkin.  

While you're here, don't forget to enter my 5th Blogoversary Giveaway, just click on the picture below.

And I also have a sign up for a Blog Hop and my September is for Sequels Challenge for you to sign up for with the buttons below.

The Friday 56 #9

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.

So here you go:

"Her eyes light up like miniature suns and I can hear Sam giggle in my head.  I take a quick breath against the raw pain it brings.  I can count on one hand the times I heard him make a happy noise like that.  Sanda walks to me, grips my hand in hers, and nods." 

While you're here, don't forget to enter my 5th Blogoversary Giveaway, just click on the picture below.

And I also have a sign up for a Blog Hop and my September is for Sequels Challenge for you to sign up for with the buttons below.

Review: The Swap by Megan Shull

This is one of the ARCs I had to get at BEA.  And boy am I glad that I got it!!  Let me say when I picked it up to finally read it this week at first I wasn't sure because it was about middle school kids and I had mistakenly assumed it was about high school kids.  So I began, figuring I'd go ahead and give it a try since I'd wanted it so badly.

The two main characters are Ellie and Jack.  Ellie is going into 7th grade, and seems to have lost her best friend over the summer to a new girl.  Her best friend's name was Sassy.  Sassy and the new girl Aspen are what you'd call Mean Girls.  Her first days at school aren't great.  In fact when she goes to gym and is changing in the bathroom she overhears Sassy telling Aspen how she wishes certain people would get the point and stop following her around. She bursts out of the locker room crying, and plans to just walk right on out of school until she is caught by the principal.  To get out of trouble she claims she just got her period and so the principal takes her to the nurse's office.

Jack is a popular 8th grade boy.  The one that all of Ellie's friends call "The Prince" and have huge crushes on.  Not that he really knows this.  Jack is not really great around girls.  He's kind of shy.  Jack lives with his dad and 3 older brothers, and it is like their whole lives are devoted to training to play hockey.  They even have what they call a "cage" in the basement where they go in and play hockey.  Their dad isn't really very understanding it seems.  Very militant with his sons and a perfectionist.  At school this same day another boy named Porter keeps opening his big mouth to Jack, including one time shoving one of Jack's best friends so that he falls.  Well finally Porter goes far enough to kind of threaten Jack about fighting and Jack gives him what he seems to want.  Only Jack is used to fighting off three older brothers and he pretty much owns Porter, other than getting slammed into a wall and ending up with a black eye.  The principal stops the fight, and takes Jack to the nurse.  Telling him that she is going to wait until Monday to call his dad. Which is the biggest thing Jack is afraid of.  He doesn't want to have to go to the same private school that his brothers go to.  He likes the public school where all his friends are.

The nurse is a really interesting nurse, very friendly and witty, at least tries to be.  Both Ellie and Jack are in the office and kind of drift off.  The nurse says some funny little rhyme and when the two wake up they are in each others' bodies!  Now they must go home for the weekend because they can't seem to find the nurse, and hope that each won't screw up the others' life over the weekend.  Ellie must fit into this all male family with such strict rules.  Jack is now a girl with only a mom, something he's missed since his mother passed a way a few years or so ago.  It is only when they learn what they need to learn that they will be put back in their own bodies.

Yes, this is totally a "Freaky Friday" type of story.  But it is such a good one, and different because it is a boy and girl of the same age being switched.  At first I was worried what would happen with that, you know, different body parts?  But Jack has been raised to be such a gentleman that he even takes baths as Ellie with her underwear and bra on.  The deal for Ellie with boy parts is addressed pretty quickly at the start with her having to pee while they are still in the nurse's office. She also pretty much stays in Jack's boxers as much as possible.  And I just love how it goes, and how they try really hard to not ruin the others' life by trying so hard to be like what they'd expect them to be.

This is a totally happy ending book.  In fact the way it ends is something I thought early on after Jack was first enjoying being loved by Ellie's mom.  But I figured I was probably thinking the wrong way.  So glad I was not.  I mean I ended this book with probably a really huge, stupid smile on my face.  It left me feeling so good.  And whether you think that is realistic or not, sometimes it is nice to have the perfect ending.  And it was perfect, feel-good, you name it!  Oh my gosh I'm just not sure I can really say how much I loved this book.  And to anyone who just hates Ellie at the beginning, let me just say this.  Yeah, she's a whiny brat to her mom.  But, as someone who taught middle-schoolers for 17 years, and 7th graders for probably 15 of those years, can I say that it is realistic?  Not for all girls, no. But for girls dealing with these types of things?  Divorced parents, best friends turning mean and deserting you?  Yes.  So realistic. And as the book goes, Ellie grows, and I grew to love her too.  At the end, when she sees Jack's brothers again after they've switched back?  The way she felt, I just wanted to be with her and tell her to go ahead and go up and hug them, even though they wouldn't have understood why she did that, they had no idea she'd been Jack that one weekend.  Love, love, love!  Now I guess you could say I'm even more excited that I got to meet the author at BEA this summer.  And here is my picture with her.

Me with Megan Shull

While you're here, don't forget to enter my 5th Blogoversary Giveaway, just click on the picture below.

And I also have a sign up for a Blog Hop and my September is for Sequels Challenge for you to sign up for with the buttons below.

Review: Feuds by Avery Hastings

Thanks to Edelweiss and St. Martin's Griffin for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  I am a huge fan of dystopian and this sounded right up my alley.  Overall I felt it was a good story, while I was left with something feeling missing, but not in a way that I won't read on as I'm sure it must continue!

The main character is Davis Morrow.  As you can probably tell from the cover, she is a ballerina.  And a perfect ballerina.  She is one of the Priors, people born perfect, the higher class you might say.  They are perfect in every way, and hers is dancing, which she is even getting ready to compete in the tryouts for the Olympics.  But there is a lot of unrest in this society.  The Imperfects, called Imps for short, are in unrest.  Davis's father is a politician who wants to help keep the two classes apart more efficiently.  The other character is Cole.  Cole is an Imp, but a very attractive one.  He also fights in what are called the FEUDS.  These are cage fights basically, to the death in some cases, and the Priors go and place bets on them.  Cole has been sponsored by the rival politician to Davis's dad so he can fight.  And then Cole is asked to go find Davis and get a picture of her kissing him.  Cole doesn't know about who her dad is, but he goes in order to keep his sponsor happy.  But at the party where they meet, he is able to pass as a Prior and Davis is definitely attracted.  But there is trouble.  There is a girl that Davis thinks is just really drunk, but she turns out to be sick.  Cole takes her back to where the Imps live and asks his brother's friend who is kind of a doctor to look at the girl.  It turns out she has a virus called Narxis, something that only the Priors are susceptible to because of their "perfect" genetic makeup.  The Priors don't like to deal with this though, and so they keep dumping the bodies down at the Imps' neighborhoods.  Davis starts feeling like she may be sick, and people she knows are also dropping out of sight.  Of course it will come to light that Cole is an Imp, and in the worst of ways, when Davis follows him to a fight.  But she will overcome this issue as she knows that he has an idea of what is going on, and her feelings for him are so strong.

Definitely a bit of a formulaic story, but not in a bad way.  It was still an enjoyable read.  There is even a bit of a shocker that we find out about Davis and her dead ballerina mother towards the end that makes me eager to read on and find out how it plays into the story.  If you're looking for a good dystopian society type of read, and you don't mind not a totally different idea then you will enjoy this.  Now it is definitely an insta-love story, but I've come to a conclusion about that which makes me able to enjoy it with no issues.  These are teenagers.  When you were a teen, or maybe you still are, don't you fall in love with people, and it seems like they are the one?  I know my first "love" was like that.  And even though now I look back and realize it wasn't really love, these are teens in tenuous situations that make ever having another love possibly impossible.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Books to Read or not to Read?

Top Ten Tuesday is sponsored by The Broke and The Bookish.  This week's theme:


 Top Ten Books I'm Not Sure I Want To Read (books you may have bought but aren't sure if you are into it anymore, books you wanted to read but heard mixed things about, hyped books you aren't sure about --- basically any book that has you going, "TO READ OR NOT TO READ?"

This is one that I thought sounded interesting, so let's see what are those 10 books that I bought or got ahold of somehow, but now I'm just not sure if I'm ever going to read it.

1. 

Now I know that so many people just love this book, and I met the author awhile back and just loved her. But I am just not sure that it is my type of book.  I'm not really what you'd call a "high fantasy" reader.  I have a UK version of this book that I won in a contest.  But I will probably trade that on YA Book Exchange for something that I know I want.

2.

I'm not sure about this one either.  I bought it when I was working at the bookstore and there was the big trend of all the classics being re-done with either vampires or zombies.  Now it sits on my TBR shelf.

3.

 

This is one that everyone said I should read.  But it just never sounded that great to me.  I saw the movie, which was very visually amazing, and it did have an interesting story.  But I just can't see ever spending the time to read it.

4.  

 

I went through a phase when I was really into memoirs, and so I grabbed this one as a good deal one year on our Christmas 40% off employee sale.  Again still sitting on my TBR shelf. And I just don't have the inclination to pick it up.

5.  

 

Now this one should be right up my alley, I love a good dystopian.  And I've heard such great things about this!  But every time I pick it up, I just can't get very far into it.

6.  

So I am normally a huge Stephen King fan.  But when the first few books in The Dark Tower series came out, I struggled through them.  Again they are so much more fantasy than I prefer to read.  When the newer ones came out, I made sure to buy them, but they're still sitting on my shelf as I don't seem to ever be in the mood to read them.

7. 

 

I thought The Lovely Bones and Lucky by this author were really emotionally touching, great reads.  And so I got this book while I was part of a books through the mail club.  But again, I've just not had any inclination to do anything with it other than leave it sitting on my TBR shelf.

8.  

 

This is another book I've heard so many good things about. But I just never seem to feel like it is worth picking up and reading.

9.  

 

This is the very first book that was ever loaned to me on a Nook.  Actually the only one I think. At the time I didn't have a Nook, just used my app on my phone.  But I didn't read it before the loan expired.  And while it has been on the bargain tables at Barnes and Noble before, I didn't ever get around to buying it.

10.  

 

I had an ARC of this and it sat on my shelf for a long time. Finally I took it back into the bookstore where I work part time and left it for someone else to read.  It still sounds good every time I read the synopsis, but again, I never find myself reaching for it.

So, what books did you think you wanted to read, but now aren't quite so sure? 

While you're here, don't forget to enter my 5th Blogoversary Giveaway, just click on the picture below.

And I also have a sign up for a Blog Hop and my September is for Sequels Challenge for you to sign up for with the buttons below.