Posts By: Amy

Friday, April 22, 2016

Blog Tour: The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas – Review

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I received this book for free from Random House Children's Books in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Blog Tour: The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas – ReviewThe Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas
Published by Delacorte Books for Young Readers on April 19th 2016
Genres: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, YA
Source: Random House Children's Books
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four-stars

The Darkest Corners is a psychological thriller about the lies little girls tell, and the deadly truths those lies become.

There are ghosts around every corner in Fayette, Pennsylvania. Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about it after what happened there that last summer. Memories of things so dark will burn themselves into your mind if you let them.

Callie never left. She moved to another house, so she doesn’t have to walk those same halls, but then Callie always was the stronger one. She can handle staring into the faces of her demons—and if she parties hard enough, maybe one day they’ll disappear for good.

Tessa and Callie have never talked about what they saw that night. After the trial, Callie drifted and Tessa moved, and childhood friends just have a way of losing touch.

But ever since she left, Tessa has had questions. Things have never quite added up. And now she has to go back to Fayette—to Wyatt Stokes, sitting on death row; to Lori Cawley, Callie’s dead cousin; and to the one other person who may be hiding the truth.

Only the closer Tessa gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer—and this time, it won’t be so easy to run away.

This was one of those rare books that actually stumped me until almost the very end. I am usually very good at figuring out a mystery and what is really going on, but this one kept me second guessing myself the whole time. It was fantastic and held my attention the whole time. The characters were great, and the emotional impact was spot on. It was a bit slow moving at times, especially to start, but it really helped build things up. One of the major things I noticed (and loved) was that there was no romance thrown in. It wasn’t necessary and it would have taken away from the story.

Tessa has had a very rough childhood. Her father is in jail, and her sister and mom have abandoned her. She has been living with her grandmother since she was younger. With her father being about to die, she goes back to her hometown to stay with Maggie, who has always been kind to her. Maggie is also Callie’s mom. Callie who used to be her best friend until she moved away. Until what happened in their childhood put a wedge between them, though Tessa doesn’t know why. Now she is back, and they are second guessing if what they testified as kids was right. Especially after another person ends up dead. She also holds a secret from when they were questioned all those years ago by the police. Something she didn’t tell anyone. Tessa is also trying to find her sister and her mom, but the more she uncovers about things, the more she feels like she is running into more dead ends. She is a smart girl, but she is also pretty broken. She has no one, she needs answers, but all she is getting is more questions. She proves brave and determined though, and she definitely gets more than she bargained for by digging for the truth.

Callie seems stuck up and snobby, but she is just as broken, if not more, than Tessa. She never left and has been left to live in the same place where the bad things happened. She feels like she can’t question what she saw that awful night because if they were wrong, then a horrible person is still out there. She just wants to get as far away from that town as she can. She drowns her pain and thoughts with alcohol. Surprisingly, even though the last person she wanted to see again was Tessa, they start to bond again through finding out the truth of everything. At first I didn’t like Callie, but by the end I really did. She was much different underneath than what we initially see when we meet her.

So of course this is a mystery, but there are also a lot of twists. One especially that I totally didn’t see coming. And I love that!! It’s not often that a book can catch me off guard like that. I tend to be very observant and can figure things out with tiny clues, but not this time. Maybe I’m getting old. It was dark at times, and suspenseful. I was intrigued by all the things that Tessa found out and how one thing led to another, even if they weren’t really directly connected to one another. The characters were great and very real to me as well. I loved watching Tessa and Callie reconnect, and I also really loved the whole family dynamic. The way the story was told, it was so believable. There were no easy outs, or coincidental things that made things just fall into place. This was fabulous!!

four-stars

4 Hot Espressos

Review: Nightstruck by Jenna Black

Posted by on 03/17/2016 • 4 Comments

This book was creepy and dark and very enjoyable for the most part. I did feel like there was a whole lot of waiting going on and things weren’t really moving forward, but there was always plenty going on. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense. What I mean is there is all sorts of creepy, crazy things happening even when the story didn’t seem to be moving forward that fast. I did feel like I wasn’t really sure what was going on, but since this is a start to a series I am assuming that we we get more information in the next ones. I think that it is a great start to a series and am interested to continue with it and see where things go….

Blog Tour: Red: The True Story of Red Riding Hood by Liesl Shurtliff – Review

Posted by on 03/11/2016 • 4 Comments

 

Hello everyone!! I am honored to be participating in this huge blog tour for Red: The True Story of Red Riding Hood. I adore fairy tales and I love retellings, so naturally I had to take part. This tour has been running for about a month and there is plenty more to come. You can refer to the tour schedule that will be at the end of this post. Don’t forget to check out the other stops for really great guest posts and fun things! For my post I am doing a review of this book.

This book was all sorts of fun. The characters were fantastic and the storyline was great. There was a bit of mystery to it as well as magic (of course), friendships, and adventure….

Review: Titans by Victoria Scott

Posted by on 02/11/2016 • 10 Comments

You know when you start reading a book and you are just pulled into it and want to devour it? Yeah, this was one of those. I loved just about everything about it. The underlying story is sad and bleak, but the main part of it is thrilling and full of adventure. This book is fast paced and keeps your heart racing along with the characters. And the best part is, there’s not really romance in it. There’s no need for it and it would have taken away from the story and I am glad that the author didn’t feel the need to throw it in there. The characters are fabulous and I really enjoyed getting to know them. The Titans were so interesting and I couldn’t help but want…

Blog Tour: Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum – Review

Posted by on 01/30/2016 • 4 Comments

Hello and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Tell Me Three Things!! I adored this book. It was just one of those books that makes you feel good. It’s not all fluff and rainbows and all that cute stuff though. There is a lot of depth to it, and things that aren’t quite so easy for the characters, but in the end it’s a book that just made me happy. I loved Jessie getting to know Somebody Nobody. I had a pretty good idea of who it was from the start, but I did keep wondering throughout if I was right. And man did it throw me for a loop at times. Anyways, I liked the honesty in the messages that they sent to each other and…

Blog Tour: Teen Frankenstein by Chandler Baker (High School Horror #1) Review and Guest Post

Posted by on 01/18/2016 • 3 Comments

Hello everyone!! I am happy to be participating in the blog tour for this book. Right when I read the synopsis, I knew that I had to read the book. So I will be doing my review and I have a great guest post with a real life high school horror story from Charlotte Huang, a friend of the author who is also an author.

To start, I really liked the characters. They were great. Especially Tor and her best friend Owen. They really were what pulled me into the story. I did enjoy this book, but had to ignore all of the things that just didn’t make sense to me. As with all things fiction, not everything has to make sense or be logical right? I can’t go into…

Review: The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos

Posted by on 01/13/2016 • 2 Comments

So I’m not really sure what to think of this book. It wasn’t bad, and it had the potential to be really good, but it missed the mark. I’m all about background information and learning the history of the character and their lives, but this one was to the point that is was very disruptive to the story and it really just disconnected me from the whole thing. It was hard to really care abou the story and what was happening when it was interrupted for long stretches explaining something about the past. I get that it’s the thought process of the main character as she is the one telling the story, but it just did’t quite work for me.

Imogene is the MC and she was just okay…

Review: My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories Edited by Stephanie Perkins

Posted by on 12/22/2015 • 6 Comments

I love the holidays, so when I was approached about reviewing this book I couldn’t pass it up. I also always love “feel good” stories and knew this would be filled with them. It didn’t disappoint. It has twelve different stories having to do with the holidays written by an amazing variety of authors. No matter what holiday you celebrate, this book will make you smile. Some even had me tearing up with happy tears. I always really have a hard time reviewing anthologies because I don’t want to have a review that is super long or too short, but I am going to try to do it as good as I can, but be assured, this is a book you want to read around the holidays or any time…