Posts Tagged: YA

Friday, January 27, 2012

Review: Incarnate by Jodi Meadows

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Incarnate
Jodi Meadows
Release date: January 31st, 2012
by HarperCollins Children’s Books

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NEWSOUL
Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

NOSOUL
Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are suspicious and afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

HEART
Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all?

*A copy was provided by HarperCollins for review purposes*

NEWSOUL
Incarnate gives us a fresh, new soul in YA. Originality at its core, Jodi Meadows has written an incredible world with dragons, sylphs, laser pistols, temple with heartbeats; really- how much more imaginative can it get? I was blown away with the imagery that formed in my mind while reading this book. It’s a gorgeous, but notably frightening world. I did have a bit of difficulty swallowing the fact that, since everyone is always being reincarnated, they give birth to people they already know. It could even be your own father. However, it is a way of life for them, who am I to say what’s unreasonable? I’ve heard of a mother who used her daughter’s egg to get pregnant, which basically means she gave birth to a grandchild of sorts. Is this weird? Of course! But we’re living in a world where you can have babies that are literally not your own, so it makes sense to think that living for thousands of years with reincarnation would desensitize people to things that presently blow our minds.

NOSOUL
Ana has had to live with her mother telling her she was a Nosoul for all of her 18 years. This turned her into a deeply defensive, cautious young woman who has difficulty putting her trust in others. Ana is a remarkably easy character to like with a realistic voice that stands out. She may have had a hard life, but this makes her loves and joys come from the heart. It’s not fake or shallow when she feels something, it’s with her whole heart and soul. Sam, the first person to show her kindness, has a heart of gold, but more importantly; the patience of a stone. They have a positively sweet romance that creeps up on you. You suddenly realize you’ve been longing for them to be together. I was delighted by how perfectly paced their relationship flourished.

HEART
We’ve got originality; we’ve got charming characters; but let’s not forget the fascinating plot that surrounds it all. Mystery after mystery flows inside these pages. I was starved for more information as much as Ana. Why is she the only newsoul? Where did Ciana go? Why was the town of Heart just sitting there? A temple with a heartbeat? It’s all so mystifying. We don’t get all the answers in this novel, but we do get some, as well as one heck of a promise: that this is the start of an epic series! 

4 Hot Espressos

Review: Angelina’s Secret by Lisa Rogers

Posted by on 01/25/2012 • 22 Comments

Angelina’s SecretLisa RogersRelease date: February 1st, 2012by Spencer Hill Press

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As a child, Angelina spent years in counseling learning that Josie, her imaginary friend, wasn’t real, but it turns out her childhood friend wasn’t imaginary after all.

Now Angelina has to accept she’s either (A) crazy or (B) able to see ghosts. Wanting to believe in her sanity, she chooses (B) and welcomes Josie back into her life. But even Josie can’t help her deal with Shelly, the spirit of a confused teenager, and things go very, very wrong.

When Angelina finds herself in a psychiatric hospital, she faces a choice: she can spend the rest of her life pretending to be someone she isn’t, or she can embrace who she is and take a…

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Review: Wasteland by Lynn Rush

Posted by on 01/24/2012 • 21 Comments

WastelandLynn RushRelease date: September 1st, 2011by Crescent Moon Press

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Bound by the blood contract his human mother signed four centuries ago, half-demon, David Sadler, must obey his demonic Master’s order to capture fifteen-year-old Jessica Hanks. But as he learns more about her, he realizes she may be the key to freedom from his dark enslavement.

The only obstacle– Jessica’s distractingly beautiful Guardian, Rebeka Abbott. He must not give in to their steamy chemistry, or he will lose his humanity. But fresh off a quarter millennia of sensory deprivation as punishment for not retrieving his last target, he may not be able to resist temptation long enough to save what’s left of his human soul.

*A copy was provided by Lynn Rush for review purposes*

From page one,…

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Embrace Tour Stop – Review

Posted by on 01/23/2012 • 23 Comments

EmbraceCherie ColyerRelease date: December 20th, 2011by Omnific Publishing

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Sometimes you end up hurting the ones you love. You find you can’t save them or yourself.

Madison is familiar enough with change, and she hates everything about it. Change took her long-term boyfriend away from her. It caused one of her friends to suddenly hate her. It’s responsible for the death of a local along with a host of other mysterious happenings. But when Madison meets a hot new guy, she thinks her luck is about to improve.

Madison is instantly drawn to the handsome and intriguing Isaac Addington. She quickly realizes he’s a guy harboring a secret, but she’s willing to risk the unknown to be with him. Her world really spins out of…

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Review: Tempest by Julie Cross

Review: Tempest by Julie Cross

Posted by on 01/21/2012 • 28 Comments

Time travel is a very tricky subject to get into. (Look at the epic failure of Lost for example). There is the usual paradox of, if we go back in time then what happens must already have happened to make us go back. As well as the endless time loop theories. Tempest battles this with separate timelines. So now my questions are: if we change timeline, then what happens to our self in the original timeline? Does a fake us keep living there? If not, is it as if we never existed there, or do people think we’ve just disappeared? And what happens to our other self that existed before we got to the new timeline?… Yes, my brain hurts too! These were the sort of questions running through my…

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Review: Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Posted by on 01/20/2012 • 29 Comments

EverneathBrodi AshtonRelease date: January 24th, 2012by Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins

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Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she’s returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld… this time forever.

She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, the one person she loves more than anything. But there’s a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath, has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he’ll do whatever it…

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Review: Hallowed by Cynthia Hand

Posted by on 01/16/2012 • 28 Comments

Hallowed(Unearthly, #2)  Cynthia HandRelease date: January 17th, 2012by HarperCollins Publishers

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For months part-angel Clara Gardner trained to face the raging forest fire from her visions and rescue the alluring and mysterious Christian Prescott from the blaze. But nothing could prepare her for the fateful decisions she would be forced to make that day, or the startling revelation that her purpose—the task she was put on earth to accomplish—is not as straightforward as she thought. Now, torn between her increasingly complicated feelings for Christian and her love for her boyfriend, Tucker, Clara struggles to make sense of what she was supposed to do the day of the fire. And, as she is drawn further into the world of part angels and the growing conflict between White Wings and…

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Review: Fracture by Megan Miranda

Posted by on 01/14/2012 • 25 Comments

FractureMegan MirandaRelease date: January 17th, 2012by Walker Books for Young Readers

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Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine-despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she’s far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can’t control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?

Then Delaney meets Troy Varga, who recently emerged from a coma with similar abilities. At first she’s reassured to…

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