Currently Reading

Title: The Librarians: The Mother Goose Chase
Author: Greg Cox
Page: 288
Genre: Fiction

Summary:
For millennia, the Librarians have secretly protected the world by keeping watch over dangerous magical relics. Cataloging and safeguarding everything from Excalibur to Pandora’s Box, they stand between humanity and those who would use the relics for evil.

Stories can be powerful. In 1719, Elizabeth Goose of Boston Massachusetts published a collection of rhyming spells as a children's book, creating a spellbook of terrifying power. The Librarian of that age managed to dispose of all copies of the book except one, which remained in the possession of Elizabeth Goose and her family, temporarily averting any potential disaster.

However, strange things are happening, A window washer in San Diego who was blown off his elevated perch by a freak gust of wind, but miraculously survived by landing on a canopy over the building entrance. A woman in rural Pennsylvania who was attacked by mutant rodents without any eyes. And, a college professor in England who somehow found herself trapped inside a prize pumpkin at a local farmer’s market. Baird and her team of Librarians suspect that the magic of Mother Goose is again loose in the world, and with Fynn Carson AWOL once again, it is up to Cassandra, Ezekiel, and Stone to track down the missing spellbook before the true power of the rhymes can be unleashed.

Currently Reading

TITLE: The Girl With All The Gifts
AUTHOR: M.R. Carey
PAGES: 435
GENRE: dystopia Fiction

Summary: 

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her "our little genius."

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

Challenges: 
Ebook Challenge
New Author Challenge
Dystopia Challenge

Currently Reading

TITLE: Isabella: The Warrior Queen
AUTHOR: Kirstin Downey
PAGES: 520
GENRE: history

SUMMARY:
An engrossing and revolutionary biography of Isabella of Castile, the controversial Queen of Spain who sponsored Christopher Columbus's journey to the New World, established the Spanish Inquisition, and became one of the most influential female rulers in history

Born at a time when Christianity was dying out and the Ottoman Empire was aggressively expanding, Isabella was inspired in her youth by tales of Joan of Arc, a devout young woman who unified her people and led them to victory against foreign invaders. In 1474, when most women were almost powerless, twenty-three-year-old Isabella defied a hostile brother and mercurial husband to seize control of Castile and León. Her subsequent feats were legendary. She ended a twenty-four-generation struggle between Muslims and Christians, forcing Moorish invaders back over the Mediterranean Sea. She laid the foundation for a unified Spain. She sponsored Columbus's trip to the Indies and negotiated Spanish control over much of the New World with the help of Rodrigo Borgia, the infamous Pope Alexander VI. She also annihilated all who stood against her by establishing a bloody religious Inquisition that would darken Spain's reputation for centuries. Whether saintly or satanic, no female leader has done more to shape our modern world, where millions of people in two hemispheres speak Spanish and practice Catholicism. Yet history has all but forgotten Isabella's influence, due to hundreds of years of misreporting that often attributed her accomplishments to Ferdinand, the bold and philandering husband she adored. Using new scholarship, Downey's luminous biography tells the story of this brilliant, fervent, forgotten woman, the faith that propelled her through life, and the land of ancient conflicts and intrigue she brought under her command.

Currently Reading

TITLE: Wicked Game
AUTHOR: Jerri Smith-Ready
PAGES: 361
GENRE: Urban Fantasy

SUMMARY:
LATE NIGHT RADIO YOU CAN SINK YOUR TEETH INTO
Recovering con artist Ciara Griffin is trying to live the straight life, even if it means finding a (shudder!) real job. She takes an internship at a local radio station, whose late-night time-warp format features 1940s blues, '60s psychedelia, '80s goth, and more, all with an uncannily authentic flair. Ciara soon discovers just how the DJs maintain their cred: they're vampires, stuck forever in the eras in which they were turned.

Ciara's first instinct, as always, is to cut and run. But communications giant Skywave wants to buy WVMP and turn it into just another hit-playing clone. Without the station — and the link it provides to their original Life Times — the vampires would "fade," becoming little more than mindless ghosts of the past. Suddenly a routine corporate takeover is a matter of life and undeath.

To boost ratings and save the lives of her strange new friends, Ciara rebrands the station as "WVMP, the Lifeblood of Rock 'n' Roll." In the ultimate con, she hides the DJs' vampire nature in plain sight, disguising the bloody truth as a marketing gimmick. WVMP becomes the hottest thing around — next to Ciara's complicated affair with grunge vamp Shane McAllister. But the "gimmick" enrages a posse of ancient and powerful vampires who aren't so eager to be brought into the light. Soon the stakes are higher — and the perils graver — than any con game Ciara's ever played...

CHALLENGES
Alphabet Title Challenge
Out Do Yourself Challenge
New To Me Author
TBR pile Challenge

Currently Reading

TITLE: Birthmarked

AUTHOR: Caragh O'Brien
PAGES: 361
GENRE: young adult

SUMMARY
In the future, in a world baked dry by the harsh sun, there are those who live inside the walled Enclave and those, like sixteen-year-old Gaia Stone, who live outside. Following in her mother's footsteps Gaia has become a midwife, delivering babies in the world outside the wall and handing a quota over to be "advanced" into the privileged society of the Enclave. Gaia has always believed this is her duty, until the night her mother and father are arrested by the very people they so loyally serve. Now Gaia is forced to question everything she has been taught, but her choice is simple: enter the world of the Enclave to rescue her parents, or die trying.

CHALLENGES
Alphabet Title Challenge
Out Do Yourself Challenge
New To Me Author
TBR pile Challenge

Currently Reading

TITLE: Looking for Alaska
AUTHOR: John Green
PAGES: 256
GENRE: Young Adult

GOOD READS SUMMARY:
Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. He heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same.

CHALLENGES
Out Do Yourself Challenge
Alphabet Title Challenge

Currently Reading

Title: Split Second book #2 of Pivot Point (a top favorite last year)
Author: Kasie West
Genre: young adult
Pages: 360

Summary on Goodreads:
Life can change in a split second.

Addie hardly recognizes her life since her parents divorced. Her boyfriend used her. Her best friend betrayed her. She can’t believe this is the future she chose. On top of that, her ability is acting up. She’s always been able to Search the future when presented with a choice. Now she can manipulate and slow down time, too . . . but not without a price.

When Addie’s dad invites her to spend her winter break with him, she jumps at the chance to escape into the Norm world of Dallas, Texas. There she meets the handsome and achingly familiar Trevor. He’s a virtual stranger to her, so why does her heart do a funny flip every time she sees him? But after witnessing secrets that were supposed to stay hidden, Trevor quickly seems more suspicious of Addie than interested in her. And she has an inexplicable desire to change that.

Meanwhile, her best friend, Laila, has a secret of her own: she can restore Addie’s memories . . . once she learns how. But there are powerful people who don’t want to see this happen. Desperate, Laila tries to manipulate Connor, a brooding bad boy from school—but he seems to be the only boy in the Compound immune to her charms. And the only one who can help her.

As Addie and Laila frantically attempt to retrieve the lost memories, Addie must piece together a world she thought she knew before she loses the love she nearly forgot . . . and a future that could change everything. 

Challenges: 
Out Do Yourself Challenge

Review of Book #1 can be found here

Currently Reading

Title: Pretty Crooked
Author: Elisa Ludwig
Pages: 358
Genre: YA

Goodreads Summary: 
Willa’s secret plan seems all too simple: take from the rich kids at Valley Prep and give to the poor ones.

Yet Willa’s turn as Robin Hood at her ultra-exclusive high school is anything but. Bilking her “friends”-known to everyone as the Glitterati-without them suspecting a thing, is far from easy. Learning how to pick pockets and break into lockers is as difficult as she’d thought it’d be. Delivering care packages to the scholarship girls, who are ostracized just for being from the “wrong” side of town, is way more fun than she’d expected.

The complication Willa didn’t expect, though, is Aidan Murphy, Valley Prep’s most notorious (and gorgeous) ace-degenerate. His mere existence is distracting Willa from what matters most to her-evening the social playing field between the have and have-nots. There’s no time for crushes and flirting with boys, especially conceited and obnoxious trust-funders like Aidan.

But when the cops start investigating the string of burglaries at Valley Prep and the Glitterati begin to seek revenge, could he wind up being the person that Willa trusts most?

Challenges: 
Out Do Yourself Challenge
New To Me Author

Currently Reading

Title: The Shadow Reader
Author: Sandy Williams
Pages: 307
Genre: Urban Fantasy

Summary on Goodreads:
There can only be one allegiance.
It’s her time to choose.

Some humans can see the fae. McKenzie Lewis can track them, reading the shadows they leave behind. But some shadows lead to danger. Others lead to lies.

A Houston college student trying to finish her degree, McKenzie has been working for the fae king for years, tracking vicious rebels who would claim the Realm. Her job isn’t her only secret. For just as long, she’s been in love with Kyol, the king’s sword-master—and relationships between humans and fae are forbidden.

But any hope for a normal life is shattered when she’s captured by Aren, the fierce and uncompromising rebel leader. He teaches her the forbidden fae language and tells her dark truths about the Court, all to persuade her to turn against the king. Time is running out, and as the fight starts to claim human lives, McKenzie has no choice but to decide once and for all whom to trust and where she ultimately stands in the face of a cataclysmic civil war.

Challenges:
Alphabet Title Challenge
Out Do Yourself Challenge
New To Me Author
TBR pile Challenge

Currently Reading...

New Year New Book!

Title: Sandman Slim
Author: Richard Kadrey
Pages: 388
Genre: supernatural fantasy

Summary on Goodreads: 
Supernatural fantasy has a new antihero.

Life sucks, and then you die. Or, if you're James Stark, you spend eleven years in Hell as a hitman before finally escaping, only to land back in the hell-on-earth that is Los Angeles. 

Now Stark's back, and ready for revenge. And absolution, and maybe even love. But when his first stop saddles him with an abusive talking head, Stark discovers that the road to absolution and revenge is much longer than you'd expect, and both Heaven and Hell have their own ideas for his future. 

Resurrection sucks. Saving the world is worse. 

Darkly twisted, irreverent, and completely hilarious, Sandman Slim is the breakthrough novel by an acclaimed author.

Challenges:
Alphabet Title Challenge
Out Do Yourself Challenge
New To Me Author
TBR pile Challenge

Currently Reading ~ #PLL Heartless #7

Title: Heartless
Author: Sara Shepard
Copyright: 2010
Pages: 274

Summary: 
First Emily, Aria, Hanna, and Spencer claimed they found a dead body in the woods behind Spencer's house, only to have it vanish without a trace. Then, when the same woods went up in flames, they swore they saw someone who's supposed to be dead rise from the ashes. And even after all that, the pretty little liars are still playing with fire. Call me heartless, but it's about time someone shut these liars up for good. After all, nobody likes a girl who cries wolf—least of all me

Currently Reading

Title: Tracy Tam: Santa Command
Author: Krystalyn Drown
Genre: young adult
Page #er: ?

SUMMARY
Tracy doesn’t believe that Santa can deliver all of those presents in one night with out a little help from science. A flying sleigh can only be powered by jet engines, and Santa’s magical abilities can only be the result of altered DNA. In order to test her theories, she sneaks onto Santa’s sleigh and ends up at Santa Command, the place where a team of humans monitors Santa’s big night. When Tracy attempts to hack into their computers, she accidentally introduces a virus to their system. As a result, three states get knocked out of sync with the rest of the world. Before the night is over, Tracy has to fix time and help Santa finish his deliveries. And she has to do it all with Santa’s magic, which she doesn’t believe exists.

Currently Reading

Title:  11/22/63
Author: Stephen King
Genre: Audio book
Page #er: 894

Summary: 
Life can turn on a dime—or stumble into the extraordinary, as it does for Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine. While grading essays by his GED students, Jake reads a gruesome, enthralling piece penned by janitor Harry Dunning: fifty years ago, Harry somehow survived his father’s sledgehammer slaughter of his entire family. Jake is blown away...but an even more bizarre secret comes to light when Jake’s friend Al, owner of the local diner, enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination. How? By stepping through a portal in the diner’s storeroom, and into the era of Ike and Elvis, of big American cars, sock hops, and cigarette smoke... Finding himself in warmhearted Jodie, Texas, Jake begins a new life. But all turns in the road lead to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. The course of history is about to be rewritten...and become heart-stoppingly suspenseful.

Currently Reading

Title: The Princes in the Tower
Author: Allison Weir
Genre: historical non-fiction
Hardcover or paperback: large paperback
Page #er: 304
TBR since 2011

 Summary 

Despite five centuries of investigation by historians, the sinister deaths of the boy king Edward V & his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, remain two of the most fascinating murder mysteries in English history. Did Richard III really kill "the Princes in the Tower," as is commonly believed, or was the murderer someone else entirely? Carefully examining every shred of contemporary evidence as well as dozens of modern accounts, English historian Alison Weir reconstructs the entire chain of events leading to the double murder. We're witnesses to the rivalry, ambition, intrigue & struggle for power that culminated in the imprisonment of the prince & the hushed-up murders that secured Richard's claim to the throne as Richard III. A masterpiece of historical research & a riveting story of conspiracy & deception, The Princes in the Tower at last provides a solution to this age-old puzzle.

Currently Reading

Title: Bitten
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Genre: Paranormal romance or Urban Fantasy
Book/Ebook: Large paperback
Page #ers: 372
TBR Pile since:  FOREVER

SUMMARY
Elena Michaels is a werewolf. She tries to be human, but the man whose bite changed her existence forever, and his legacy, continue to haunt her. Thrown into a desperate war for survival that tests her allegiance to a secret clan of werewolves, Elena must reconsider who and what she is.

Currently Reading

Title: I Want God
Author: Lisa Whittle
Genre: Christian Fiction/Non-Fiction
Hardcover/Paperback/Ebook: Ebook
Page #ers: not sure
Netgalley ARC

SUMMARY:
It is in the heart of every woman to want God, but sometimes life gets noisy and you can easily forget Him. You forget your first encounter with the Savior and how you were moved by the thought of Someone bigger than yourself. You forget the way you once believed He could use your life. You forget the fulfillment He provides that everyday life cannot.

This is why you must remember. You must remember how powerful He is, how purposeful He made us, how easy it is for Him to move radically within your heart.

I Want God is the guidebook for every woman who wants God to use her loud and big. With her signature boldness and raw authenticity, beloved author and speaker Lisa Whittle inspires women to run after the only relationship that can ever fill them up. Learn the simple but life-altering lessons that will spur a soul-revival.

Currently Reading

Title: Theiving Forest

Author: Martha Conway

Genre: Historical Fiction

Hardcover/paperback/ebook: Ebook

Page #er: 416

Netgalley ARC

Summary: 

On a humid morning in 1806, seventeen-year-old Susanna Quiner watches helplessly from behind a tree while a band of Potawatomi Indians kidnaps her four older sisters from their cabin. With both her parents dead from Swamp Fever and all the other settlers out in their fields, Susanna rashly decides to pursue them herself. What follows is a young woman's quest to save her sisters and the parallel story of her sisters' new lives. 

Over the next five months, Susanna tans hides in a Moravian missionary village; escapes down a river with a young native girl; discovers an eccentric white woman raising chickens in the middle of the Great Black Swamp; and becomes a servant in a Wyandot village longhouse. The man who loves her, Seth Spendlove, is in pursuit after he realizes that his father was involved in the kidnapping. Part Potawatomi himself but living a white man’s life, Seth unwittingly sets off on his own quest to reclaim his birthright. He allies himself with a Potawatomi named Koman, one of the band of men who originally abducted the Quiner sisters, but who now wishes to make his own retribution. Together they canoe through the Black Swamp and into enemy territory looking for Susanna, and while they travel Koman teaches Seth about their shared heritage. 

Currently Reading

Title: Silence (The Queen of the Dead #1)
Author:  Michelle Sagara West
Genre: Young adult
Hardcover or paperback: Hardcover
Page #er: 289
TBR since 2012

Summary 
Ever since her boyfriend Nathan had died in a tragic accident, Emma had been coming to the graveyard at night.  During the day she went through the motions at her prep school, in class, with her friends, but that’s all it was.  For Emma, life had stopped with Nathan’s death.  But tonight was different.  Tonight Emma and her dog were not alone in the cemetery.  There were two others there—Eric, who had just started at her school, and an ancient woman who looked as though she were made of rags.  And when they saw Emma there, the old woman reached out to her with a grip as chilling as death….

Emma was not quite like others teenagers. It was true that other girls had experienced grief.  Other girls had also lost their fathers, or had their boyfriends die in a senseless accident. But though she hadn’t known it till that night in the graveyard, unlike those other girls, she could see, touch, and speak with the dead.  In fact, Emma could draw upon the essence of the dead to work magic.  That was what Necromancers did. But Emma had no desire to be a Necromancer. She just wanted to help the ghosts who walked the streets of Toronto, unable to escape from the land of the living.  And that was just as well, because had she chosen the path of the Necromancer, Eric would have had to kill her.

Instead, Eric and his fellow Necromancer hunter Chase found themselves violating every rule they were sworn to follow, becoming part of Emma’s group, helping her to stand against those who preyed upon the dead.  But whether Emma and her friends could survive such a battle was anyone’s guess.  And whether Emma could learn to use the magic of the dead against her enemies without herself falling victim to the lure of such power remained to be seen.  Eric seemed to think she could, and her living friends would never abandon her.  But only time would tell what Emma’s true destiny was….