Monday, June 30, 2014

Book Review: Only With You by Lauren Layne (@_laurenlayne)


Only With You (The Best Mistake #1) by Lauren Layne
Publication Date: July 29, 2014
Published: Forever Yours
Source: eARC from Netgalley

My Rating:
Love is the Biggest Gamble of All . . .

Cocktail waitress Sophie Dalton doesn't exactly have a life plan. She's perfectly happy being everyone's favorite party girl. But when a Las Vegas bachelorette party goes awry and an uptight businessman mistakes Sophie for a prostitute . . . well, Sophie wonders if it's time to reevaluate her priorities. Swearing off her thigh-high boots for good, Sophie slinks back home with damaged pride-and a jackpot of a hangover.
Yet what happens in Vegas doesn't always stay there. On a trip to Seattle to open a new office, Grayson Wyatt meets his latest employee-who turns out to be the same woman he recently called a hooker. Wealthy and gorgeous, Gray is a man used to getting what he wants. And it doesn't take long to figure out that smart, sassy, sexy Sophie is everything he's been looking for. As their late nights at the office turn into hot morning-afters, they realize their Vegas misunderstanding may lead to the real thing . . .

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Sunday Post #2

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.

What a week! It feels like I was just telling you all what was to come for the week, and here I am wrapping it up. I guess what they say is true, time flies when you're having fun. My trip to Nashville has been AH-MAZ-ING. For the first time in three years I got to sleep in my childhood home, in the comfort of my bedroom; it was magnificent. Unfortunately, today is my last day here, but it's already been decided that my kids and I will be returning for another two weeks, once summer camps come to an end. My husband is either having the time of his life or really understanding, I can't decide which.

Nikki hopefully learned that the world wouldn't fall apart if I went on vacation, since there isn't a day that went by when we didn't talk anyway. Besides, she went parading and to see Transformers, which she loved despite all the bad buzz around the interwebs.

The downside to vacation? Not being able to read, both books and posts, as much as I would like. I'm sure Nikki can empathize, as she told me earlier in the week that she wasn't able to get through a single book. (She did, for the record.) Anyhoo, I'm realize I'm rambling, so on with it I go. Hope you all have a great week!


Monday, June 23rd - 
Book Review: Flat Out Celeste by Jessica Park 
Whether you were charmed by Celeste in Flat-Out Love or are meeting her for the first time, this book is a joyous celebration of differences, about battling private wars that rage in our heads and in our hearts, and—very much so— this is a story about first love.For high-school senior Celeste Watkins, every day is a brutal test of bravery. And Celeste is scared. Alienated because she’s too smart, her speech too affected, her social skills too far outside the norm, she seems to have no choice but to retreat into isolation.But college could set her free, right? If she can make it through this grueling senior year, then maybe. If she can just find that one person to throw her a lifeline, then maybe, just maybe.Justin Milano, a college sophomore with his own set of quirks, could be that person to pull her from a world of solitude. To rescue her—that is, if she’ll let him.Together, they may work. Together, they may save each other. And together they may also save another couple—two people Celeste knows are absolutely, positively flat-out in love.

Tuesday, June 24th - 
Book Review: Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

Top Ten Tuesday: Book Cover Trends We Like/Dislike

Wednesday, June 25th - 
Waiting On Wednesday #6

Thursday, June 26th -
Thirsty Thursday #1 - First Ever Book Boyfriend - Thursday marked the date of our first ever Thirsty Thursday, a meme highlighting all the things in fiction that make our mouths water. If interested in joining us, check out the feature page here for more info.

Book Review: Between The Lives by Jessica Shirvington 
The perfect life or the perfect love. You choose.For as long as she can remember, Sabine has lived two lives. Every 24 hours she shifts to her 'other' life - a life where she is exactly the same, but absolutely everything else is different: different family, different friends, different social expectations. In one life she has a sister, in the other she does not. In one life she's a straight-A student with the perfect boyfriend, in the other she's considered a reckless delinquent. Nothing about her situation has ever changed, until the day when she discovers a glitch: the arm she breaks in one life is perfectly fine in the other.With this new knowledge, Sabine begins a series of increasingly risky experiments that bring her dangerously close to the life she's always wanted. But if she can only have one life, which is the one she'll choose?A compelling psychological thriller about a girl who lives two parallel lives - this is Sliding Doors for the YA audience.

Friday, June 27th -
Book Beginnings & The Friday 56 #33

Saturday, June 28th - 
Stacking the Shelves #10 

The theme for Thirsty Thursday this week will be... Drum roll, please... Favorite First Kiss. We have ours, and we're dying to hear yours! Don't forget to link back to us so we can all see what kiss wets your whistle.

Another big thing coming this week is our first ever giveaway. We are part of a giveaway hop, so there will be a lot of chances to win loads of bookish things. We have great prizes for our winners. Look out for that on Wednesday.

Aside from that, we have our usual memes and a few fun reviews, including a guest review from a cheeky little Taurus I know.


That's a wrap! Have any thoughts on these books that you would like to share? We would love to hear them.

Until Next Time,

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Stacking The Shelves #10

Stacking The Shelves, a weekly meme hosted Tynga's Reviews, is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

It's funny how quickly we accumulate books without realizing it. I wasn't sure we would have a STS post this week, but alas, the words were calling, so here we are! Can't wait to see what everyone else added to their shelves this week.


Wide Awake by Shelly Crane - My current read. Thus far Wide Awake is engaging. Due to vacation I haven't been able to read as much as I would like, but I'm looking forward to really getting into the heart of this book.

Since Forever Ago by Olivia Besse - Found this on Netgalley. I've heard mixed reviews, but I've learned not to judge a book before reading it for myself.

The 100 Society by Carla Spradbery - After seeing this in Nikki's haul last week I couldn't resist. It's been a while since I've read a true thriller.

Ghosting by Edith Pattou - Somehow this missed my haul last week, but I've read it and loved it. There aren't enough words to articulate how I felt about this book. However, I'm going to try. Check back in a couple weeks for my full review.

Pivot Point by Kasie West - After reading The Distance Between Us I needed more from Kasie West and immediately went to download Pivot Point. I'm so so excited to get into this one.


The Hot Corner by Amy Noelle - I met Amy through fanfiction and I adored her writing. So when she was publishing her second book I immediately signed up to get a signed copy from her. I can't wait to read it. She does sports very well.

Rusty Nailed by Alice Clayton - One of my most anticipated of the summer. The first was sexy and funny and I'm sure the follow up will be the same if not better.

My Life With The Walter Boys by Ali Novak - I have a feeling this will be a real cute read. And I'm all about cute these days.

Pivot Point by Kasie West - Being obsessed with an author requires reading of their books. Since reading The Distance Between Us, I have become obsessed and now I can finally deepen it with her non-contemporary series.

Split Second by Kasie West - See Pivot Point.

The Promise of Amazing by Robin Constantine - I saw this recommended on Epic Reads for a nice romantic read. For some reason, this reminds me of Beginning of Everything, and since I adored that I figured why not give this a chance.

Until Next Time, 

Friday, June 27, 2014

Book Beginnings & The Friday 56 #3

 

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader, the meme encourages to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book.

 "The Friday 56" is also a weekly event, hosted by Freda's Voice, where you find any sentence, (or few, just don’t spoil it) that grab you from page 56 or 56% in your book/eReader (If you have to improvise, that's ok.)

What they say about first impressions can be applied to books as well. I've been guilty of judging a story by its first line, paragraph, page, etc. That is why Book Beginnings is one of my favorite features! I can think of many books that left me slack-jawed from the start. Can you?

Drew Evans is a winner. Handsome and arrogant, hemakes multimillion dollar business deals and seduces New York’s most beautiful women with just a smile. He has loyal friends and an indulgent family. So why has he been shuttered in his apartment for seven days, miserable and depressed?

He’ll tell you he has the flu.
But we all know that’s not really true.
Katherine Brooks is brilliant, beautiful and ambitious. She refuses to let anything - or anyone - derail her path to success. When Kate is hired as the new associate at Drew’s father’s investment banking firm, every aspect of the dashing playboy’s life is thrown into a tailspin. The professional competition she brings is unnerving, his attraction to her is distracting, his failure to entice her into his bed is exasperating.

Then, just when Drew is on the cusp of having everything he wants, his overblown confidence threatens to ruin it all. Will he be able untangle his feelings of lust and tenderness, frustration and fulfillment? Will he rise to the most important challenge of his life?

Can Drew Evans win at love?

Tangled is not your mother’s romance novel. It is an outrageous, passionate, witty narrative about a man who knows a lot about women…just not as much as he thinks he knows. As he tells his story, Drew learns the one thing he never wanted in life, is the only thing he can’t live without.
 "Do you see that unshowered, unshaven heap on the couch? The guy in the dirty gray T-shirt and ripped sweatpants? That's me, Drew Evans."


 The first thought that came to mind was the way that this seemed like the forth wall had been broken and Drew, was talking straight to the audience. It reminded me of Ferris Bueler in a weird way. And the visual of a hot, (assuming) dirty guy on a couch was something that felt different. When we usually meet our hero or swoon worthy guy, he is nothing short of a 12 on a scale of 1 to 10. This is fun.

 ""Before we get into that, there's something I want to do first."
There's amusement in her voice as she asks, "What do you want to do, Drew?"
I pick her up, sweep everything off my desk, and lay her down.
"You.""

A girl.
A coma.
A life she can't remember.

When Emma Walker wakes up in the hospital with no knowledge of how she got there, she learns that she's been in a coma for six months. Strangers show up and claim to be her parents, but she can't remember them. She can't remember anyone. Not her friends, not even her boyfriend. Even though she can't remember, everyone wants her to just pick up where she left off, but what she learns about the 'old her' makes her start to wish she'd never woken up. Her boyfriend breaks up with the new girl he's dating to be with her, her parents want her to start planning for college, her friends want their leader back, and her physical therapist with the hazel eyes keeps his distance to save his position at the hospital.

Will she ever feel like she recognizes the girl in the mirror?

"Someone was speaking. No, he was yelling. It sounded angry, but my body refused to cooperate with my commands to open my eyes and be nosy."

Already I was curious as to whether she was waking up or if these were her thoughts within the comma. Not to mention that I wanted to know who "he" was. Each chapter offers a useless fact as its opening. Chapter one's was "A ducks quack doesn't echo and no one knows why." Between this and the opening line, I was instantly intrigued.

"I shook my head. "He broke up with you in a note on your car?" She nodded pathetically. "Yes," she whined. "And he hasn't spoken to me since. And I get it, you're back, that's great. I just wanted to make sure he was OK and to tell him that I understood why he needed to go back to you. But he won't..."

Until Next Time,

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Book Review: Between the Lives by Jessica Shirvington (@JessShirvington)


Between the Lives by Jessica Shirvington
Publication Date: August 7, 2014
Published: Orchard Books
Source: eARC from Netgalley

My Rating:

The perfect life or the perfect love. You choose.
For as long as she can remember, Sabine has lived two lives. Every 24 hours she shifts to her 'other' life - a life where she is exactly the same, but absolutely everything else is different: different family, different friends, different social expectations. In one life she has a sister, in the other she does not. In one life she's a straight-A student with the perfect boyfriend, in the other she's considered a reckless delinquent. Nothing about her situation has ever changed, until the day when she discovers a glitch: the arm she breaks in one life is perfectly fine in the other.
With this new knowledge, Sabine begins a series of increasingly risky experiments that bring her dangerously close to the life she's always wanted. But if she can only have one life, which is the one she'll choose?
A compelling psychological thriller about a girl who lives two parallel lives - this is Sliding Doors for the YA audience.

Thirsty Thursdays #1


"Thirsty Thursdays" is an original weekly feature where we highlight all that makes our mouth water in the world of books. Join us each week where we will pick either a quote, book cover, book boyfriend or kiss from our favorite books, that makes us all swoony. Please link back to us each week, we'd love for you to share what wets your whistle, as well!

Welcome to our inaugural week. With it being the first, we are going to highlight book boyfriends. Our first book boyfriends ever! 


Boyfriend(s): Fred and George Weasley
Book: Harry Potter Series
Swoony Quality: Humor 

Why: I didn't really know what book boyfriends were before Harry Potter. Even though these two aren't the main guys people fawn over, I loved the Weasley family as a whole but Fred and George were always a favorite. And I always wished I was Angelina Johnson so I would get at least one twin.


Boyfriend: Todd Wilkins
Book: Sweet Valley High Series
Swoony Quality: Jock, Boy-next-door good looks

Why: Admittedly, I haven't read all of these, and probably never will. But when I was younger I was surrounded by older girls - a sister and cousins - who all had these books, thus began my exploration of teenage-dom at way too young an age. Now that I'm older I would never go for someone as scandalous as Todd. I mean, twins?! How dare you? I'll stick with crushing on the mysterious Jordan Catalanos of the world, thank you. Then, though, I was head-over-swoonsville for that California cutie.

Check out our Thirsty Thursdays tab for all our future Thursday topics!

Until Next Time!