Review: The Wrong Girl by C.J. Archer

Format read: eARC provided by NetGalley.
Series: Freak House #1.
Genre: YA Historical Paranormal “Romance”.
Release Date: May 25, 2013.
Number of pages: 215 pages.
Formats available: ebook, paperback.
Purchasing Info: Author, Goodreads, Amazon, Smashwords.
Book Blurb:

It’s customary for Gothic romance novels to include a mysterious girl locked in the attic. Hannah Smith just wishes she wasn’t that girl. As a narcoleptic and the companion to an earl’s daughter with a strange affliction of her own, Hannah knows she’s lucky to have a roof over her head and food in her belly when so many orphans starve on the streets. Yet freedom is something Hannah longs for. She did not, however, want her freedom to arrive in the form of kidnapping.

Taken by handsome Jack Langley to a place known as Freak House, she finds herself under the same roof as a mad scientist, his niece, a mute servant and Jack, a fire starter with a mysterious past. …

Review: Some Quiet Place by Kelsey Sutton

Format Read: eARC from Netgalley.
Genre: YA, Magical Realism.
Release Date: June 1, 2013.
Number of pages: 350 pages.
Publisher: Flux.
Formats Available: ebook, paperback.
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Powells, Book Depository, Amazon, Author.
Book Blurb:

I can’t weep. I can’t fear. I’ve grown talented at pretending.

Elizabeth Caldwell doesn’t feel emotions . . . she sees them. Longing, Shame, and Courage materialize around her classmates. Fury and Resentment appear in her dysfunctional home. They’ve all given up on Elizabeth because she doesn’t succumb to their touch. All, that is, save one—Fear. He’s intrigued by her, as desperate to understand the accident that changed Elizabeth’s life as she is herself.

Elizabeth and Fear both sense that the key to her past is hidden in the dream paintings she hides in the family barn. But a shadowy menace has begun to stalk her, and try as she might, Elizabeth can barely avoid the brutality of her …

This Blog Has Been Taken Over By Dragons. Poll + Giveaway.

As discerning readers have no doubt noticed….This blog has been taken over by dragons!

This really shouldn’t come as a shock. Dragons are magnificent and powerful creatures. They range from brilliant, duplicitous, magic-wielding immortals – to the less-strategically inclined, but equally deadly, fire-breathing, poison-spewing, feral winged-creatures terrorizing all who dare to enter their territory.

Even as we speak, they are shoring up their defenses and laying in siege weaponry. Soon the dragons shall spread throughout the internet and into your computer.

THEY CANNOT BE STOPPED. (Plus, who would even want to try? Only soulless monsters who have to appreciation for literature, art, beauty, and the distinct pleasure of having one’s head still attached to one’s body.)

Dragons can, however, be placated. Through copious amounts of praise and treasure. Book Lovers Inc. has thus begun honoring our draconic overlords through Dragon Day (in which there has been much praise, and the promise of treasure). This shall be …

Review: A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan + Giveaway

Format Read: eARC from Netgalley (also, Hardcover).

Series: Memoirs of Lady Trent #1.

Genre: Fantasy/Historical Fiction.

Release Date: February 5, 2013.

Publisher: Tor.

Number of Pages: 336.

Formats Available: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook.

Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, BookDepository.

Book Blurb:

You, dear reader, continue at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart—no more so than the study of dragons itself. But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon’s presence, even for the briefest of moments—even at the risk of one’s life—is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten. . . .

All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, know Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world’s preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth and misunderstanding into the clear light of modern science. But before she became …

Review: Club Monstrosity by Jesse Petersen

Format Read: ebook.

Release Date: April 29, 2013.

Genre: Horror/Comedy.

Series: Monstrosity #1.

Length: 224 pages.

Publisher: Pocket Star.

Formats Available: ebook.

Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon.

Book Blurb:

Natalie’s one of Frankenstein’s creations and works in a New York City morgue. So of course she needs therapy. She and her friends—er, fellow monsters—have formed the world’s most exclusive, most dysfunctional support group. What could go wrong?

Undetected in the modern world and under pressure to stay that way, Natalie Grey, Dracula, Bob the Blob, and others (including the fetching wolfman Alec) meet regularly to talk about the pressures of being infamous in the Big Apple. Topics include how long it’s been since their last sighting, how their “story” creates stereotypes they can’t fulfill, and—gasp—sometimes even their feelings. But when their pervy Invisible Man, Ellis, is killed in a manner reminiscent of the H.G. Wells novel, it’s clear someone’s discovered their existence and is down for some …

Review: The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination by John Joseph Adams (ed.)

Format Read: eARC from Netgalley.

Number of Pages: 368.

Release Date: February 19, 2013.

Genre: Science fiction, anthology.

Publisher: Tor.

Formats Available:  ebook, paperback.

Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Book Depository, Powells.

Book Blurb: 

From Victor Frankenstein to Lex Luthor, from Dr. Moreau to Dr. Doom, readers have long been fascinated by insane plans for world domination and the madmen who devise them. Typically, we see these villains through the eyes of good guys. This anthology, however, explores the world of mad scientists and evil geniuses—from their own wonderfully twisted point of view.

An all-star roster of bestselling authors—including Diana Gabaldon, Daniel Wilson, Austin Grossman, Naomi Novik, and Seanan McGuire…twenty-two great storytellers all told—have produced a fabulous assortment of stories guaranteed to provide readers with hour after hour of high-octane entertainment born of the most megalomaniacal mayhem imaginable.

Everybody loves villains. They’re bad; they always stir the pot; they’re much more fun than the good guys, even if …

Bookish Rant: Unconventional Endings Need Not Apply

“I don’t think man was meant to attain happiness so easily. Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it” -Edmund Dantes.

Book adaptations are a constant bone of contention for Book Lovers. Do we want to see our favorite works beautifully depicted on screen a la Game of Thrones? Or are we outraged by the humorous defilement of a definitely not humorous body of literature in School of Thrones? (Note: Regardless of sexposition in the former, and lack of Arya in the latter, I am a huge fan of both adaptations.)

I take most adaptations on a case-by-case basis. But will instantly and irrevocably transform into a flaming ball of nerd-hate when screenwriters who are essentially transmitting the story directly from page to screen, get a sudden aneurysm brainstorm and “improve” the ending. Screw things like plot, character development, …

Bookish Rant or Raves: Negative Review or Personality Disorder?

I fervently adore negative reviews.  A negative review provides the perfect framework to fully interact with a book. That pissed off reviewer hates things about a book that I loved, is outraged by something I completely missed, or shares in the absurdity of the so-called worldbuilding the author alleges to have undertaken.

DRACARYS!

On any given day, I have to listen to an abusive oil lineman convince a Judge that the wife cut the brakes in her own car, or a Napoleonic landlord claim it was a violation of the lease for a family to light a fire in the fireplace in Alaska in the winter.

I want to read something cathartic; wherein the assholes get what’s coming to them. Alternately, I’m interested in something that gives me hope for the human condition. Either/Or. When I don’t get that…..

I. Am. Pissed.

But I fly right passed …

Review: The Queen Is Dead by Kate Locke

Review: The Queen is Dead by Kate Locke.

Format Read: ebook.

Number of Pages: 336.

Release Date: February 5, 2013.

Publisher: Orbit.

Genre: Urban Fantasy.

Series: The Immortal Empire #2.

Formats Available: Hardback, ebook, audiobook.

Purchasing Info: Author, Goodreads, Book Depository, Amazon.

Book Blurb:

Nothing lasts forever—and immortality isn’t all its cracked up to be.

When her brother Val gets in over his head in an investigation of Half-Blood disappearances and goes missing himself, it’s up to Xandra, newly crowned Goblin Queen, to get him back and bring the atrocities to light. Xandra must frequent the seediest parts of London, while also coping with what she is, the political factions vying for her favor, and the all too-close scrutiny of Queen Victoria, who wants her head. Add this to a being a suspect in a murder investigation, a werewolf boyfriend with demands of his own, and a mother hell bent on destroying the monarchy, and Xandra …

Review: Hammer of Angels by G.T. Almasi

Format Read: eARC from Netgalley.

Number of Pages: 352.

Release Date: March 26, 2013.

Series: Shadowstorm #2.

Genre: Urban Fantasy.

Publisher: Del Ray Books.

Formats Available:  ebook, mass market paperback.

Purchasing Info: Amazon, Book Depository, Goodreads.

Book Blurb:

In G. T. Almasi’s thrilling alternate reality, the United States, the USSR, and the Republic of China share a fragile balance of power with Greater Germany, which emerged from World War II in control of Europe and half of the Middle East. To avoid nuclear Armageddon, the four superpowers pursue their ambitions with elite spies known as Levels, who are modified with mechanical and chemical enhancements.

Nineteen-year-old Alix Nico, code-named Scarlet, is a kick-ass superheroine with killer Mods and an attitude to match. She’s considered one of America’s top Levels, even though her last mission nearly precipitated World War III. So now Scarlet and her new partner, Darwin, have been sent to Greater Germany to help sow the seeds …