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Monday, June 30, 2014

Primordial Dust Sarah Daltry *Book Blast and Giveaway*




Primordial Dust is my last blast for the month of June :3! The giveaway is open internationally. Enjoy!

Synopsis:
A princess, trained to behave. An assassin, betrothed to her. A thief, whose eyes she dreams of at night. A kingdom at war, torn apart by the suppression of magic and truth, as well as family secrets that threaten to destroy decades of peace.
Questions of loyalty, of morality, and of freedom will culminate in a fantasy novel about forging one’s own path and choosing one’s own destiny.




iTunes | KOBO |

About the Author:
Sarah Daltry writes about the regular people who populate our lives. She’s written works in various genres – romance, erotica, fantasy, horror. Genre isn’t as important as telling a story about people and how their lives unfold. Sarah tends to focus on YA/NA characters but she’s been known to shake it up. Most of her stories are about relationships – romantic, familial, friendly – because love and empathy are the foundation of life. It doesn’t matter if the story is set in contemporary NY, historical Britain, or a fantasy world in the future – human beings are most interesting in the ways they interact with others. This is the principle behind all of Sarah’s stories.

Sarah has spent most of her life in school, from her BA and MA in English and writing to teaching both at the high school and college level. She also loves studying art history and really anything because learning is fun.

When Sarah isn’t writing, she tends to waste a lot of time checking Facebook for pictures of cats, shooting virtual zombies, and simply staring out the window.


| Website |

Giveaway
3 Winners will receive an E-Copy of Primordial Dust by Sarah Daltry.
1 Winner will receive a $10 Amazon gift card and Swag pack by Sarah Daltry.
1 Winner will receive a Swag Pack by Sarah Daltry.

Open Internationally. Must be 13+ to enter.



Friday, June 27, 2014

Keeper Ingrid Seymour **Omnibus Review**

Isn't this a great cover? :3
My last review for the month...! *cries*

Ok, just had to get that out there because June is almost over...and my personal deadline to finish Whispers and Murmurs is officially looming over my head like an angry storm cloud. ("Finish me...or else!" It growls :/)

Getting back to the point, KEEPER is a fantastic urban fantasy that I wholeheartedly recommend. Keeper was released in volumes before the Omnibus arrived, so if you don't want to commit to reading the whole novel, you can preview a slice by grabbing Volume 1 and go from there. The Omnibus edition (volumes 1-4) will be available on Amazon 7/2/14. I'll be putting that link up when the time arrives. Til then, here are links for Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4 on Amazon.

If you go on Seymour's website (links at the bottom), you can check out things like: a sneak preview, the trailer, and a playlist, to name a few.

Here's the synopsis:

For them, free will is a luxury . . .

Greg Papilio both wants and dreads his impending metamorphosis. He’s tired of being a runt—always picked last on the basketball court—and tired of being ugly, when he could be what girls call “drop dead gorgeous.” But as much as he looks forward to the transformation, he also fears the caste it will inevitably assign to him. He doesn’t want a common caste. He wants a powerful one, a cool one.

Samantha Gibson is average. She’s short and a little full around the hips—a terribly cute look for a future chef. She’s two years away from culinary school, from her uncaring parents, and from carving a perfectly Human future. She wants independence, a career and a quiet life of her own.

Except fate couldn’t care less about what Greg and Samantha want and gives them exactly the opposite. Greg’s metamorphosis assigns him a caste that enslaves him to Samantha, while her chance to attend Le Cordon Bleu is taken away. But things are never as interesting as when Ashby—an intriguing blonde with a hidden identity—enters her life with a splash.

Greg’s fate is to protect Samantha at a time when someone wants her dead. He's her Keeper and will stop at nothing to ensure her safety, even if her secret past proves deadly, even if he's keeping her safe for someone else.

And here's my review:

When I signed up for the chance to read Keeper, I was excited (of course)--but I was also nervous. Maybe this was going to be yet another novel that sounded stellar...but wasn't. So I approached Keeper with a healthy dose of skepticism and prepared for 'the worst'. 

Thankfully, Keeper turned out to be a fantastic read, and I highly recommend it! 

**I received an e-arc in exchange for an honest and fair review**

First impressions: 
I was hooked by first page, and started laughing immediately. Despite being slightly burnt out with the whole pov-that-switches-every-chapter-between-various-characters thing, I really enjoyed Keeper and found myself thoroughly invested before I even realized it. When I can talk to a book (or its characters) in both rant and rave fashion, I know it's got me...and Keeper definitely got me.
The language factor pops up a couple of times in the beginning, but this 'behavior' is very short-lived. Sure, Greg lets a word loose every now and then in the later chapters. But if that's something you're concerned about, don't be, because it tapers off quickly and hardly ever comes back.

My thoughts while reading: I really like this book. Wow, cool. This is great. I really like this book. LOL

Characters: 

It's been a while since I've read a novel in which I can relate to several characters. Could I relate to everyone? Well, no. But I could relate to the main characters—Greg, Sam, Ashby...the really important ones--so it's fine. 

I wasn't too sure about Greg when I first met him because I had a difficult time understanding him. But as time progressed, he grew on me. The concept of morphing—and his being a Morphid in general—helped this growth along because let's face it: Morphing is utterly fascinating! But back to Greg. Greg is the cute kind of awkward; he struggles to fit in and doesn't. I could relate to that. I could also relate to his struggles with his Morphid side vs his 'human' desires.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Pigments of My Imagination Angela Kulig *Review* and June Mini-update

The new cover :3
Guys. June is almost over O_O! But before the month ends, I'm going to post a couple reviews, a blast, and a (hopefully) nifty Japanese language 'starter' post :D. I'm excited. 

Here's the first of my reviews--Pigments of My Imagination by Angela Kulig. (And yes, please gawk at these gorgeous covers as long as you wish!)

*Random sidenote: I think this is the first time I've done back to back posts featuring the same author! Sounds like a milestone to me lol...

The previous, limited edition cover. Couldn't NOT show this one because it's so pretteh!
Synopsis:
From the moment Lucia steps into Bayside Art Academy, she is fed a steady stream of lies, but it’s not until she meets William that she begins to question the people she trusts. Unraveling fact from fabrication seems impossible until Lucia finds her first painting, and discovers the dead do not lie--at least not to her.

A dozen lifetimes ago, Lucia started a war. Not a war with armies or guns, but a bloody war nonetheless. The path leading Lucia to the truth is hidden within lovely art that spans the ages. In this life, however, Lucia doesn't know where to look. Lost, she turns to the one thing she knows with certainty--she is in love with Leo, and has been before.

Review:
Like many of the novels I've read recently, PIGMENTS OF MY IMAGINATION struck me as a work with tremendous potential; the setting is fascinating, the character backstories are intriguing, and the concept is truly unique. Honestly. I've never read a novel quite like this one.

And great news: PoMI is the first in a series!

I enjoyed the connection to the world of art, and found the supernatural abilities of artists to be nothing less than uber cool. Exploring Lucia's past through artwork was also neat. I loved the fact that this novel stretches itself ever-so-slightly into other genres—for example, PoMI is part mystery, romance, historical fiction (sort of. If you read it, you'll understand what I mean), and fantasy, to name a few without any brain effort.

The prose was repetitive at times (for example, the word 'even' popped up several times on a page); however, there are more than a few sentences/paragraphs that so captivated me with their beauty I had to read them again. The style is simplistic enough to breeze through, but lovely (and full) enough to ponder and explore.

So I liked many things about PoMI...but there were a number of things that I didn't favor.

I had a really difficult time connecting with the characters, particularly Lucia. Lucia confused me. A lot. This was largely because her emotional reactions didn't make much sense to me—especially when it came to anger, and, to be frank...she seemed to be angry a lot of the time. Other than that, I struggled to feel or see characters in a flesh and blood sense aside from William.

The biggest issue for me was definitely the pacing, though. Imagine you're watching a movie with that one friend—the one who “can't help” but provide commentary throughout—and every 5-10 minutes said friend pauses the movie to explain his/her feelings about what's happening and summarizes details you couldn't care less about. (At least they paused it, right?) Are you picturing this?

That's what the pacing felt like to me. Nearly every time someone would start talking, the POV character would drift off into an internal monologue about what was being said and what was going on around them. Sometimes the information was extraneous. (Normally that would be a mere annoyance, but in PoMI, it was a legitimate reason for me to skim.) Sometimes the monologue lasted pages. (Also a legitimate reason for me to skim.)

I so disliked the pacing that I could only ever go through 10-15 pages at a time before I became disinterested and longed to put the book down. After going through almost 90% of the book like this, I finally decided that maybe PoMI simply isn't for me.

The decision saddened me because it's the first of the Painters series...and it sounds so cool! I still plan on reading other novels by Kulig, though, like the Skeleton Song *cough*. I'm really looking forward to it.

Overall, PoMI wasn't really for me, BUT I still feel that PoMI is worth checking out, because it's the first in a series, and who knows? Maybe you'll really enjoy it :) and find that you're unable to put it down!


Final Verdict: 

About the Author:
Angela Kulig is an American gypsy, and former pirate. She has been from sea to shining sea--and though she is currently trapped in the desert against her will, she escapes everyday in the form of many books. 

| Website |


Sunday, June 8, 2014

23 1/2 Hours to Live Angela Kulig *Cover Reveal*



Guys, I'm so excited to share the cover of Angela Kulig's New Adult romance, **23 1/2 Hours to Live**, with you :)!

Angela Kulig's covers are genius (seriously. Genius), and I've loved each of them. My favorite is probably a tie between Pigments of My Imagination and The Skeleton Song...but I digress.   

Release Date: July 24th, 2014

The Cover: 
Cover love :3

Mini-Blurb 
You're alone in a bookstore. A stranger comes in and tells you he'll be dead tomorrow. He asks you to kiss him....do you do it?

Kaylee Hall knows exactly where she'll be, every day of every week. Mostly at Price's Used Book Store on 32nd street, which is exactly where she is the night Jackson Bennett decided to casually rewrite her life story. With his holey jeans and holey alibis Jackson roars risk taker. Only maybe he's anything but.

Add 23 1/2 Hours to Live to your to-read shelf on Goodreads!

About the Author
Angela Kulig is an American gypsy, and former pirate. She has been from sea to shining sea--and though she is currently trapped in the desert against her will, she escapes everyday in the form of many books. 

| Website |