Sunday Post #7

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.

If you didn't catch yesterday's post then I (Keira) will recap my news because I'm just so freaking excited! So everyone knows I've been looking forward to reading Of Scars and Stardust by Andrea Hannah. It's been my most anticipated read for what feels like forever! Anyway, a couple weeks ago I saw that Andrea was looking for people to join her street team. I jumped at the opportunity to sign up. After a week went by without word I figured it probably just wasn't meant to be. Two weeks, I was certain I wasn't fated to have anything to do with this book before its release. Well, Friday I got the most awesome email. I'm on the street team! I'm excited to spread the word about this title. If you haven't heard of it check it out here. The synopsis alone had me drooling when I first read it. 

In other news, I'm heading home on Tuesday. While I'm sad to leave my parents, I'm looking forward to getting back to normalcy. Our sleeping schedule is all out of whack, and since school starts on the 12th, I need to remedy this fast! 

Nikki has been reading her pretty little head off. With so many tours and ARCs on the calendar to review I think she's feeling the pressure, but in a good way. Ever felt like that? Between work and reading she went to this really cool birthday dinner where she had a mac n' cheese cheeseburger. Yum? She seemed to think so.

This may or may not have been stolen from her instagram... I plead the fifth.

She also got to meet Arden Cho aka Kira from Teen Wolf yesterday. Seriously, this girl meets more celebrates than I can keep up with. We should do that Freaky Friday thing and switch shoes for just one day. 

Anything new happening in your neck of the woods? 

Monday, July 28th - 

• Book Review: Boomerang by Noelle August

Welcome to Boomerang.com, the dating site for the millennial gen with its no-fuss, no-commitments matchups, and where work is steamier than any random hook-up
Mia Galliano is an aspiring filmmaker. Ethan Vance has just played his last game as a collegiate soccer star. They’re sharp, hungry for success, and they share a secret.
Last night, Ethan and Mia met at a bar, and, well . . . one thing led to another, which led to them waking up the next morning—together. Things turned awkward in a hurry when they found themselves sharing a post hookup taxi . . . to the same place: Boomerang headquarters.
What began as a powerful connection between them is treated to a cold shower courtesy of two major complications. First, Boomerang has a strict policy against co-worker dating. And second, they’re now competitors for only one job at the end of summer.
As their internships come to an end, will they manage to keep their eyes on the future and their hands off each other, or will the pull of attraction put them right back where they started?

Tuesday, July 29th - 

• Top Ten Tuesday: Authors We Own The Most Books From 

Wednesday, July 30th - 

• Waiting On Wednesday #11 
• Chocolate Book Tag

Thursday, July 31st -

• Thirsty Thursday #6: Steamiest Kiss
• Blog Tour: Where You Are by Alla Kar

Got boy problems? Call Laney Scott. She's good for advice, a shoulder, or a swift kick where you need it. When her roommate Bethany gets her heart broken, yet again, it's Laney to the rescue. But Laney's harboring a secret. She's nursing her own broken heart. She and her friends come up with a plan to break Aiden and set it into play. Laney wants Aiden to pay for what he's done to Bethany. She will make him fall in love with her, so can break his heart.
Laney's ex-boyfriend Lachlan Hems is back in Florida, still Australian and sexy as hell. His best mate Lucas is getting married, and he is in town for the show. He just didn’t realize Laney would be there … in another guy’s arms, or that seeing her again would have such an effect on him. After the incident in high-school, he vowed to never care for her again. But sometimes fate has different plans.
When Laney’s resolve crumbles, Lachlan is the only one that can put her back together again.
Where You Are is the start of a three-books new adult series from Amazon and Barnes and Noble bestselling author Alla Kar.

Friday, August 1st -

• Book Beginnings & The Friday 56 #8 
• Book Blitz: Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid + Giveaway

Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost.Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named LEILA. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most.
There's HUDSON, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And BREE, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday—and a few stolen goods along the way. ELLIOT believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And SONIA worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.
Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth— sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way.

• Book Review: Foreplay by Sophie Jordan

Before she goes after the life she’s always wanted, she’s about to find the one she needs.Pepper has been hopelessly in love with her best friend’s brother, Hunter, for like ever. He’s the key to everything she’s always craved: security, stability, family. But she needs Hunter to notice her as more than just a friend. Even though she’s kissed exactly one guy, she has just the plan to go from novice to rock star in the bedroom—take a few pointers from someone who knows what he’s doing.
Her college roommates have the perfect teacher in mind. But bartender Reece is nothing like the player Pepper expects. Yes, he’s beyond gorgeous, but he’s also dangerous, deep—with a troubled past. Soon what started as lessons in attraction are turning both their worlds around, and showing just what can happen when you go past foreplay and get to what’s real…

 Saturday, August 2nd -

• Stacking The Shelves #15

It's race week! We need your help spreading the word. On August 4th The Race to 150 Giveaway beginnings. The faster we reach 150 followers the faster winners will be chosen. We have some awesome prizes picked, so make sure to stop by tomorrow to check those out.

The Alice Clayton Giveaway beginnings Tuesday. Nikki is excited to meet Alice this week and get a couple books signed for us to gift to one of you.

Thirsty Thursday's topic this week is: Accidentally sexy - a non-smutty scene that winded up sexy anyway.

Hope you all have a great week!

Until next time, 

Stacking The Shelves #15

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 the weekend! Anyone have any big plans? I'm hoping to check out one of Nashville's independent bookstores. I'll be disappointed if I leave and didn't get to go, so must make that happen. Like Nikki, I really should stop adding to my shelves, but then where would we be with this feature? ;)

The Imaginary Life by Mara Torres - Netgalley ARC; I requested this title because of the cover, but the synopsis sounds so good. I can't wait to read. 

Chill Factor by Sandra Brown - I've heard about this story from a few people, and like most books, there are mixed reviews. However, mystery/thrillers seem to be what I'm after these days, so when I got the email from Penguin that this was on sale for $1.99 I ran to iBooks and scooped it up. 

A Silent Prayer by Samreen Ahsan - This will be my first Christian romance. It's on my "To Review" list, so look for that.

Of Scars and Stardust by Andrea Hannah - It's no secret that I'm super excited for this book. Well, I recently signed up for Andrea Hannah's street team, so while I'll miss the anticipation of the read, I cannot wait to start this!

I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You by Courtney Maum - This is another I've heard mixed things about, but loved the blurb and cover.

The Space Between Us by Anie Michaels - Praise. I have heard nothing but praise for this title. How could I not buy it?

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga - This has been on my TBR forever, but for some reason, I just couldn't bring myself to buy it. Nikki told me the day before this went up on Netgalley to bite the bullet and I nearly did, but then BAM, it was a Read Now. The Universe likes me this week. 

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout - The Lux series has been the talk of seemingly every blogger, so when I heard this was free on Amazon I had to add it to my collection.

Asylum by Madeleine Roux - After winning Sanctum from Cuddlebuggery's Little Blogger, Big Ambitions program reading Asylum became a must.

Decker's Wood by Kirsty Dallas - Decker's Wood... If the book is as suggestive as the title then I'll be happy.

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga - I met this author at Icon Tours and this book has been on my TBR since.

What's new on your shelf this week?

Until Next Time,

Book Review: Foreplay (The Ivy Chronicles #1) by Sophie Jordan (@SoVerySophie)

Foreplay (The Ivy Chronicles #1) by Sophie Jordan
Publication Date: November 5, 2013
Published: William Morrow

My Rating:

Before she goes after the life she’s always wanted, she’s about to find the one she needs.

Pepper has been hopelessly in love with her best friend’s brother, Hunter, for like ever. He’s the key to everything she’s always craved: security, stability, family. But she needs Hunter to notice her as more than just a friend. Even though she’s kissed exactly one guy, she has just the plan to go from novice to rock star in the bedroom—take a few pointers from someone who knows what he’s doing.
Her college roommates have the perfect teacher in mind. But bartender Reece is nothing like the player Pepper expects. Yes, he’s beyond gorgeous, but he’s also dangerous, deep—with a troubled past. Soon what started as lessons in attraction are turning both their worlds around, and showing just what can happen when you go past foreplay and get to what’s real…

Book Blitz: Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid (@adialsaid @harlequinteen) #letsgetlost

Let's Get Lost
by Adi Alsaid
Release Date: 07/29/14
Harlequin Teen

Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost.
Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named LEILA. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most.
There's HUDSON, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And BREE, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday—and a few stolen goods along the way. ELLIOT believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And SONIA worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.
Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth— sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way.

Available Now!

Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Indie Bound * Harlequin.com

Excerpt

HUDSON COULD HEAR the car’s engine from blocks away. He stepped outside the garage and closed his eyes, listening, picking apart the sounds so that he would know exactly what he’d have to fix before he even popped the hood.

Standing there against the garage, listening to the still-far-off car, Hudson could forget about everything else. About school and girls and his future and whether his friends were actually jackasses or just acting like them. With his eyes closed, Hudson could reduce the world to a single engine and nothing more; a world where he could not only name every little part but knew what it was for, how it worked, how to fix it.

He opened his eyes when he heard the car’s brakes chirp as it slowed to turn into the garage. It was an old Plymouth Acclaim, the kind of car you either happily sent off to die or loved with your entire heart and refused to let go of. It had seen better days, its red paint job chipped and faded, its muffler not doing much muffling. He waved the driver forward to where he was standing. He was still identifying the car’s problems when the girl killed the engine and climbed out.

He only allowed himself a quick glance at her, knowing as soon as he saw her that she was the kind of girl who could make you think your life was not complete unless she was in it. She was a jumble of contradictions: short but with long legs, fierce green eyes but a kind expression, baby-faced but wise. She was wearing a snug, plain red T-shirt that matched her car. Her hair was down, the black locks reaching just past her chin.

“Afternoon,” she said, offering a polite smile.

He replied in kind, trying to adopt the professional tone he used with most customers. He asked her to pop the hood and then walked to the front of the car to release the latch. He meant to bury himself in work right away, but against instinct he stole another glance. How long would the memory of her face haunt him? Days? Weeks? “You having trouble with anything specific?”

“Well, not really,” she said, slipping her hands into the back pockets of her shorts, which made her posture change in a way Hudson couldn’t help but notice. The quiet world outside the garage noticed the change in her posture, the damp Mississippi air noticed, even the various grease stains spread out on the garage floor noticed. “I just got started on a road trip, and it’s making a lot of noise, so I wanted to be sure it’s in shape.”

Hudson grabbed a clean rag off a nearby shelf and checked the oil and the transmission fluid. He liked working in relative silence, nothing but the subtle sound of the cooling engine, his hands and tools on the machine. Something about this girl, though, made him chatty. “Where you goin’?”

“North,” she said. “All the way north.”

“You from around here?” He suddenly felt self-conscious about his drawl, the hitch in his vowels, the overall lackluster quality of his presence.

“Nope. You?”

He chuckled as he ran his hands around the engine, checking for cracks in belts. “Born and raised.”

Early Praise:

“Reminiscent of John Green’s Paper Towns and road trip novels that feature a teen paving the way to adulthood, Alsaid’s debut is a gem among contemporary YA novels.” – School Library Journal

“Five love stories, beautifully woven together by a special girl in search of adventure, hope, and full appreciation of life’s simple pleasures. A do-not-miss. ” – Justine Magazine

“Moving and poignant.” - Glitter Magazine

“An entertaining and romantic road-trip debut.” – Kirkus

"Leila's quest to find the Northern Lights takes readers on a captivating cross-country journey, where four strangers' adventures collide into one riveting tale of finding yourself." ―YABooksCentral.com

“This will likely be a popular summer hit, especially for older teen about to embark on their own journeys of self-discovery.” –Booklist

 About the Author

Adi Alsaid was born and raised in Mexico City, then studied at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. While in class, he mostly read fiction and continuously failed to fill out crossword puzzles, so it's no surprise that after graduating, he did not go into business world but rather packed up his apartment into his car and escaped to the California coastline to become a writer. He's now back in his hometown, where he writes, coaches high school and elementary basketball, and has perfected the art of making every dish he eats or cooks as spicy as possible. In addition to Mexico, he's lived in Tel Aviv, Las Vegas, and Monterey, California. A tingly feeling in his feet tells him more places will eventually be added to the list. Let's Get Lost is his YA debut.

Let's Get Lost Website!

Author Links:

***GIVEAWAY***

1 signed hard cover copy of Let’s Get Lost

1 Let’s Get Lost luggage tag

1 Harlequin TEEN notebook

1 Let’s Get Lost sachel

1 Harlequin TEEN tote bag

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Blitz Organized by:

YA Bound Tours

Book Beginnings & The Friday 56 #8

"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.)

Happy Friday the 1st. It's confession time! I (Keira) have not started a new book since last Friday, therefore, my BB and 56 was going to be the same. Instead, I'm going with the book I'm starting next, so we'll be reading the beginning and an excerpt from page 156 together! In my defense, I've been on vaca... 

The Legacy by Necole Ryse

Nineteen-year-old Raevyn Jones has never worn a designer gown. She's never had access to unlimited champagne or chauffeured limo rides.
But when she is dropped in the midst of the Black Ivy League--against her will--she has to pretend that everything is normal, as if she belongs.
When her new friends start to question her sketchy past and her shaky legacy at Benjamin Wallace Fitzgerald University, Raevyn realizes she will have to rely on her street smarts more than ever before.
Raevyn starts to receive cryptic text messages and emails from an anonymous sender and she soon discovers that not only does someone want her to leave B.W.Fitz--someone also wants to end her life.

"I needed to get out of the car before I lost every piece of my damn mind. Stuffed in the back seat of my father's Subaru, my legs had been folded under me for only God knew how long during the trek to Ohio."

First I have to think what Ohio looks like. But other than that it gives you a little suspense about what is to come.

""You look like someone I know." He flipped the omelette. "Someone I haven't seen in a long time."

"Who?" "Ain't no way you'd know him." He smiled, like he was visiting a memory. "A guy named Chuck, graduated in '94." "Chuck Jones?" I asked with a thumping heart."

I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You by Courtney Maum

Where'd You Go, Bernadette meets Beautiful Ruins in this reverse love story set in Paris and London about a failed monogamist's attempts to answer the question: Is it really possible to fall back in love?
Despite the success of his first solo show in Paris and the support of his brilliant French wife and young daughter, thirty-four-year-old British artist Richard Haddon is too busy mourning the loss of his American mistress to a famous cutlery designer to appreciate his fortune.
But after Richard discovers that a painting he originally made for his wife, Anne -when they were first married and deeply in love-has sold, it shocks him back to reality and he resolves to reinvest wholeheartedly in his family life . . . just in time for his wife to learn the extent of his affair. Rudderless and remorseful, Richard embarks on a series of misguided attempts to win Anne back while focusing his creative energy on a provocative art piece to prove that he's still the man she once loved.
Skillfully balancing biting wit with a deep emotional undercurrent, debut novelist Courtney Maum has created the perfect portrait of an imperfect family-and a heartfelt exploration of marriage, love, and fidelity.

 "Moments of great import are often tinged with darkness because perversely we yearn to be let down." 

Hmmm... I'm not sure if this is meant to be thought provoking, but I find myself pondering whether this is true or not. Perhaps for me it would be more accurate had the author said, "...we expect to be let down", but that's a topic for another day. Book wise, BANG. I already want to know more about the narrator.

"I suppose it's inevitable. Here it is: I miss you. Dave and I have set the date for our wedding: July 21. Now that it's set, though, it feels definitive. It makes me miss you. I'm sure you can understand this better than I can, as I've never been married. It feels like a good-bye. I mean, it is a good-bye, obviously, and it has been, it's just, what do I do with the missing part? What do I do with the part of me that does miss you, that falls asleep at night, sometimes dreaming of a parallel life?"

Any good beginnings, middles, or ends you want to share?

Until Next Time,