Monthly Archives:: February 2015

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Fresh Batch (March 1st – 7th)

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Fresh Batch, posted weekly, keeps you up to date on the hottest releases of the upcoming week.

Flavor of the week:

The Winner’s Crime
Marie Rutkoski
Series: The Winner’s Trilogy #2
Publication date: March 3rd 2015
by Farrar Straus Giroux

Goodreads Purchase

Book two of the dazzling Winner’s Trilogy is a fight to the death as Kestrel risks betrayal of country for love.

The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement…if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret.

As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.


Other releases this week:
* In no particular order *




The Selection Stories: The Queen & The Favorite (The Selection 0.4, 2.6) by Kiera Cass [Purchase]
The One That Got Away by Simon Wood [Purchase]
The Mermaid’s Sister by Carrie Anne Noble [Purchase]
The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley [Purchase]


Sustain by Tijan [Purchase]
With Every Heartbeat (Forbidden Men #4) by Linda Kage [Purchase]
An Uncertain Choice (An Uncertain Choice #1) by Jody Hedlund [Purchase]
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro [Purchase]


Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega #4) by Patricia Briggs [Purchase]
The Tragic Age: A Novel by Stephen Metcalfe [Purchase]
Vision in Silver (The Others #3) by Anne Bishop [Purchase]
Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran [Purchase]


Dark Debt (Chicagoland Vampires #11) by Chloe Neill [Purchase]
The Forgotten Sisters (Princess Academy #3) by Shannon Hale [Purchase]
Crow Moon by Anna McKerrow [Purchase]
Mosquitoland by David Arnold [Purchase]


The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson [Purchase]
Becoming Rain (Burying Water #2) by K.A. Tucker [Purchase]
Easy Love (Boudreaux #1) by Kristen Proby [Purchase]
The Beneath by S.C. Ransom [Purchase]


Death Marked (Death Sworn #2) by Leah Cypess [Purchase]
Of Silk and Steam (London Steampunk #5) by Bec McMaster [Purchase]
Charisma by Jeanne Ryan [Purchase]
Something Real (Reckless & Real #2) by Lexi Ryan [Purchase]


Flunked (Fairy Tale Reform School) by Jen Calonita [Purchase]
Hell’s Kitchen (Hell’s Kitchen #1) by Callie Hart and Lili St. Germain
The 27 Club by Kim Karr [Purchase]
Terminal (Virals #5) by Kathy Reichs and Brendan Reichs [Purchase]


The Boy Who Lost Fairyland (Fairyland #4) by Catherynne M. Valente [Purchase]
My Best Everything by Sarah Tomp [Purchase]
The Devil’s Detective: A Novel by Simon Kurt Unsworth [Purchase]
The Dark Water (The Well’s End #2) by Seth Fishman [Purchase]


Pocket Apocalypse (InCryptid #4) by Seanan McGuire [Purchase]
Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz [Purchase]
Hung Up by Kristen Tracy [Purchase]
The Storyspinner (The Keepers’ Chronicles #1) by Becky Wallace [Purchase]


The Memory Key by Liana Liu [Purchase]
Wreckage by Emily Bleeker [Purchase]
As White as Snow (Lumikki Andersson #2) by Salla Simukka [Purchase]
Return to Me (Covington Cove #1) by Kelly Moran [Purchase]


Infandous by Elana K. Arnold [Purchase]
Bone Gap by Laura Ruby [Purchase]
Sorceress (Spellcaster #3) by Claudia Gray [Purchase]
Mind Games by Teri Terry [Purchase]


Lost Boy by Tim Green [Purchase]
Kin (Tales of Beauty & Madness #3) by Lili St. Crow [Purchase]
Deviate (The Light Key Trilogy #2) by Tracy Clark [Purchase]
Dead to Me by Mary McCoy [Purchase]


Razorhurst by Justine Larbalestier [Purchase]
Black Wreath: The Stolen Life of James Lovett by Peter Sirr [Purchase]
Silence by Deborah Lytton [Purchase]
How to Win at High School by Owen Matthews [Purchase]


Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy by Susan Vaught [Purchase]
The Box and the Dragonfly (The Keepers #1) by Ted Sanders [Purchase]
Positively Beautiful by Wendy Mills [Purchase]
The Dead I Know by Scot Gardner [Purchase]


Prairie Fire (Dragon Slayer of Trondheim #2) by E.K. Johnston [Purchase]
Season of Fire (The Remnants #2) by Lisa Tawn Bergren [Purchase]


What’s going to be your first March purchase?

 

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Find previous Fresh Batch posts here!

Review: Get Dirty by Gretchen McNeil

Review: Get Dirty by Gretchen McNeil

Posted by on 02/27/2015 • 6 Comments

Remember the time when I kept sayingGet Even, the first book of this duology, was better as a standalone?

Well, I now eat my words, because if that book was a standalone, Get Dirty wouldn’t exist, and I would have missed a book that was BAD. ASS. AWESOME. Seriously, guys. I enjoyed this way more than I expected to, and I’m so happy with how everything was written and concluded!

I mean, seriously? It doesn’t only has suspense (I was on my toes the whole time), unpredictability (I swear I couldn’t guess who the perpetrator was… the timing of the clues and how they were laid out and everything made me SECOND-GUESS EVERYONE), girl power (four girls with different personalities being fantastic together and individually), but humor, too! I swear, guys, this one made…

Blog Tour: The Tragic Age by Stephen Metcalfe – Review and Giveaway

Blog Tour: The Tragic Age by Stephen Metcalfe – Review and Giveaway

Posted by on 02/26/2015 • 18 Comments

This book was very refreshing. The MC was such a fabulous voice and I really liked reading this from his POV. While I didn’t always like the character, he was really wonderful and I felt for him. I loved the writing and how he would be telling us something and create a scenario, then tell us that wasn’t what really happened. It was entertaining. He was bright and creative.

Billy was one of those characters that you really feel. He is not the stereotypical rich kid at all. In fact, he doesn’t really care about any of that and he sometimes thinks things would be easier if he was not the child of rich parents. Not to mention the death of his sister that is a constant ache for…

Review: Losing at Love by Jennifer Iacopelli + Giveaway

Review: Losing at Love by Jennifer Iacopelli + Giveaway

Posted by on 02/25/2015 • 6 Comments

Penny, Jasmine, and Indy are back in all their wonderful glory! Losing at Love is the sequel to Game. Set. Match. which I completely loved when I read it 2 years ago. And even though so much time has past since, I was easily taken back into the world of tennis and competitions and romance and drama. This novel is more character than plot driven – the later doesn’t progress all that much, but the friendships and personal goals do, which are just as important for the story to move forward.

All in all, this novel is a character driven drama about these girls’ complicated lives as Tennis pros. Don’t let this scare you off, however, I know squat about that sport, and I was completely captivated by the…

Review: Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash

Review: Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash

Posted by on 02/24/2015 • 8 Comments

This was very dark, very gritty, and very powerful. I have read a few books about school shootings, and while my favorite will always be Nineteen Minutes, this is one I’m not likely to forget any time soon.

Silent Alarm focuses more on after the fact than the shooting itself. We do see the event unfold, but the story is more about Alys having to live with what her brother did. As expected, there’s a great amount of grief, of guilt, of “what ifs” on her part. Her character is developed in a way that even though she closes herself off emotionally – self preservation and all – she still lets us in. With many emotional books like this, I keep myself at arm’s length due to the overwhelming…

Review: I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios

Review: I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios

Posted by on 02/23/2015 • 34 Comments

It’s been a little bit since I have read a contemporary, especially one that sucked me in and I read the book in one day. This book did just that. Well, almost. I actually started the book late at night and only got a few chapters in, then when I picked it up the next day I didn’t stop until I was done. I really liked the characters and their stories were hard, but amazing. I understood where both the MC’s were coming from, even if sometimes their behaviors did irritate me. Most of all, the overall story was just great. All of it, from beginning to end. And I loved that it was dual POV so we get to be in both Skylar and Josh’s head.

Skylar was…

Cover Madness Giveaway: Winter 2015!

Cover Madness Giveaway: Winter 2015!

Posted by on 02/23/2015 • 12 Comments

There are some great covers that have been popping up this winter, and what better way to show them off than with a Cover Madness giveaway!? For those who are not familiar with this giveaway (we’ve been doing one every few months for a couple of years, now), basically it’s to feature some of our favorite new covers of upcoming books, and you get to win one of them! Since none of these are actually released yet, you’ll be winning a pre-order of the book of your choice from the pretty selection below! 🙂

 

What’s up for grabs:

Two winners will have their pick from the new covers below:

**If the book chosen happens to become unavailable at TBD the winner will have…

Giselle’s Stacking the Shelves [February 22nd]

Giselle’s Stacking the Shelves [February 22nd]

Posted by on 02/22/2015 • 23 Comments

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews featuring the books we got this week, and I also mention blog news/happenings of the past week. Hi bookish lovelies! I hope you’re all having a great weekend! I’ve been fighting off a cold for the past week so I’m mostly doing nothing or watching TV – which I’m not complaining about I guess 😉 Any good movies you’ve seen lately? I’ve been binge-watching The Good Wife but once that’s done I’ll need some new entertainment! So this week I only got a few eBooks. I think our city and driveaway are so deeply buried in snow that no mail could even reach be to be honest >.<

BOOK HAUL:

I received for review:

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