Tuesday, September 27, 2016

TACKLE YOUR TBR READ-A-THON - WRAP UP AND AUDIO BOOK REVIEW




Daily Updates

CHALLENGE UPDATE

Day 27 September 2016

Books Reading: 1

Books Listening To: 1

Pages Read: 80

Chapters Listened  -  Finished

Total Books Read: 3

Total Pages Read: 388

Finished Books: 3



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pic and description taken from Goodreads

DESCRIPTION:

Naomi Bowes lost her innocence the night she followed her father into the woods. In freeing the girl trapped in the root cellar, Naomi revealed the horrible extent of her father’s crimes and made him infamous.

Now a successful photographer living under the name Naomi Carson, she has found a place that calls to her, thousands of miles away from everything she’s ever known. Naomi wants to embrace the solitude, but the residents of Sunrise Cove keep forcing her to open up—especially the determined Xander Keaton.

Naomi can feel her defenses failing, and knows that the connection her new life offers is something she’s always secretly craved. But as she’s learned time and again, her past is never more than a nightmare away.

MY REVIEW / THOUGHTS:


Well, this is my second novel by Nora Roberts, and I have to say she is a fantastic writer.  This book was so hard to quit listening to.

This time we get to live through the life of Naomi, who at the age of 11 yrs old, saved a girl from a basement.

Naomi saw her father go into the woods to go cool off by the water.  Or so she thought.  What she found, was her dad going in the opposite direction to a broken down shack in the woods.  Only, he didn't even go in the shack.....Instead he oped a trap door to a bunker underground.  Naomi knew that if her father knew she was there she would be in a lot of trouble.  She kept quiet, and waited.  She thought her dad was putting her birthday present together.  While she waits in the woods, she knows she should head back home, but when her  dad emerged from the bunker Naomi noticed his eyes, and realized they were not the eyes of her father.

Naomi waits and waits, but cannot seem to pry herself from her spot.  She just needed to check to see if her bike was down there.  When she opened the bunker she heard some whimpering and she got excited.  Maybe her dad finally gave in and got her a puppy for her birthday.  What she saw was definitely not a dog.  It was a woman begging for help.

Living in a town where everyone knows everyone, Naomi, her brother, and mother quickly found out that being the family of a serial killer was no picnic.

I don't want to give anything away.  This is the beginning of the book. Seriously it only gets better from there.  Or more creepy from there!  Audio started and just a few minutes in I am good and hooked.  I haven't stop listening except for when I was sleeping.

Roberts is an excellent writer.  I have really enjoyed both books I have read of hers.  I cannot wait to get my hands on more.

If you like mystery, intrigue, and romance, this is the book for you.

Source:  I bought this audio book for myself.  I was not compensated in any way for this review.  These are my own PERSONAL views on the book.

Content: some language, and some sex.  Some of the sex was explicit, and some was fade to black.

MY RATING:


WHERE TO BUY:

    

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Nora Roberts
pic and bio taken from Goodreads

Nora Roberts was born in Silver Spring, Maryland. She began writing when a blizzard in February 1979 kept her in her hilltop home with a three and six year old for nearly a week of canceled kindergarten and dwindling chocolate supplies. 

During the now-famous blizzard, she pulled out a pencil and notebook and began to write a story for her own entertainment. From the first page, she knew it was what she was meant to do. Several manuscripts and rejections later, Irish Thoroughbred was published by Silhouette in 1981.

The Liar, published in April 2015 by Putnam, is her 214th book. She hit the NY Times Bestseller list in 1991. Every book since 1999 has made that list.

Recently The New Yorker called her “America’s favorite novelist."

In 1995, she began writing a police procedural series featuring Eve Dallas, a NY homicide cop, and set in the near future under the J.D. Robb pseudonym. Devoted in Death, out in September 2015, is the 41st entry in the series.






WINNER OF RANDOM PAGE / PARAGRAPH CHALLENGE!!!

AND THE WINNER IS......





Congrats Kristen!  Check your email :)

Sunday, September 25, 2016

TACKLE YOUR TBR READ-A-THON - DAILY UPDATE


Daily Updates

DAY OF THE CHALLENGE/DATE

Day 14 - September 26, 2016

Books Reading: 1

Books Listening To: 1

Pages Read: 80

Chapters Listened  -  Part 1 Track 16

Total Books Read: 2

Total Pages Read: 388

Finished Books: 2

WOOO....I got a two more chapters done on my audio book.  I am glad I joined the RAT, even though I haven't gotten much done.  I thought about doing more...does that count?  hehe

Saturday, September 24, 2016

TBR READ-A-THON UPDATE AND CHALLENGE





Daily Updates

DAY OF THE CHALLENGE/DATE

Day 13 - September 25, 2016

Books Reading: 1

Books Listening To: 1

Pages Read: 80

Chapters Listened  -  Part 1 Track 14

Total Books Read: 2

Total Pages Read: 388

Finished Books: 2



RANDOM BOOK CHALLENGE


We're nearing the end and I want you guys reading more than doing a challenge, so this is another easy one. For this challenge you need to go to your bookshelves and do the following...



  1. Start at the first black book the farthest left in your bookshelf
  2. Move five books to the right
  3. Move down or up (depending on if there is a shelf above or below, if both, pick one)
  4. Move two books to the right
  5. Pick that book, open to a random page, and share a line or two from that page (pictures are great if you're on social media or have a blog)


Mine is:

"He watched as a combine harvester rumbled slowly toward him, cutting a swathe through the grass.  It jerked to a halt a short distance away, and the door of the cabin opened.  A man got out - with difficulty.  He was so fat he had to squeeze himself out, first one buttock, then the next, and finally his stomach, shoulders, and head......"

------- Point Blank (Alex Rider)

Friday, September 23, 2016

TBR READ-A-THON - UPDATE AND REVIEW


Daily Updates

DAY OF THE CHALLENGE/DATE

Day 12 - September 24, 2016

Books Reading: 1

Books Listening To: 1

Pages Read: 308 

Chapters Listened  To: 117 - on my itunes - Part 1 Track 7

Total Books Read: 2

Total Pages Read: 308

Finished Books: 2

Here is my review for the 2nd Book I have finished

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pic and description taken from Goodreads:

DESCRIPTION:

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London’s West End on July 30, 2016.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.


MY REVIEW / THOUGHTS:

I don't even know where to start.  My love for ALL things Harry Potter runs deep.  This is in my opinion HANDS DOWN the GREATEST series ever written.  The thought of being able to dive back into this world made me so, so happy.  I have had the book for a while and have been dying to get to it, but other things got in the way.  Now that I am done, I just want to open it up and read it again.

I cannot even count anymore how many times I have listened to The Harry Potter Series, or read it, or watched the movies.  It is too many to count.  Every time I get like a giddy little school girl again, because they make me that excited and happy.  

Anyhow, lets get on to the review.

This is a script of the play that is now playing in England where I wish I was right now watching it.  We get to go on a ride with Harry's son Albus, and Malfoy's son Scorpius.   

Albus is a lot like Harry, he likes to "fix" things which usually means he is getting into trouble.  Scorpius, is nothing like his father.  He is kind and he befriends Albus right off.

These two remind me so much of Harry and Ron.  Albus and Harry do not get a long very well, and when he befriended Scorpius Harry forbade him to see him anymore.  As a parent of a teenagers I know that is the WRONG thing to say...hehe

Needless to say, Albus and Scorpius set off on an adventure to change the world so that Albus can make his dad proud.

This is such a wonderful read.  I cannot express that enough.  I weeped like a new born baby while reading this book.  I laughed, got mad, and a whole other plethora of emotions.  Rowling's writing goes beyond brilliant.  She makes a world come to life in ways I have never experienced with another book.  She has made these characters personal to me, and I love that more than anything.

If you haven't picked this book up, you should.  Especially if you are a Harry Potter fan.  I know there are so many nay sayers out there about this book, but in my opinion they don't know what they are talking about..hehe

I hope there are more to come.  I hope they make this into a movie or bring the play to America.  I need more Harry Potter in my life.  It just makes me happy.

Source:  I bought this book for myself.  I was not compensated in anyway for this review.  These are my own PERSONAL thoughts on the book.

MY RATING:
(personally I don't think there is a rating high enough for this book)
 



WHERE TO BUY:

  

ABOUT THE TEAM 

J.K. Rowling
pic and bio taken from Goodreads

Although she writes under the pen name J.K. Rowling, pronounced like rolling, her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply Joanne Rowling. Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. She calls herself Jo and has said, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry." Following her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name ofJoanne Kathleen Rowling. In a 2012 interview, Rowling noted that she no longer cared that people pronounced her name incorrectly.

Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and Anne Rowling (née Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War.

Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then read to her sister. She recalls that: "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable kind," gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.

Rowling has said of her teenage years, in an interview with The New Yorker, "I wasn’t particularly happy. I think it’s a dreadful time of life." She had a difficult homelife; her mother was ill and she had a difficult relationship with her father (she is no longer on speaking terms with him). She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother had worked as a technician in the science department. Rowling said of her adolescence, "Hermione [a bookish, know-it-all Harry Pottercharacter] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Steve Eddy, who taught Rowling English when she first arrived, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books.

John Tiffany
pic and bio taken from Goodreads


John Tiffany trained at Glasgow University gaining an MA in Theatre and Classics. He was Literary Director for the Traverse Theatre, Associate Director for Paines Plough and a founding Associate Director for the National Theatre of Scotland. He is currently an Associate Director for the Royal Court Theatre. During 2010-11 John was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University.

Work for the Royal Court includes: THE TWITS, HOPE, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and THE PASS.
Work for the National Theatre of Scotland includes: LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, MACBETH, ENQUIRER, PETER PAN, THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA, TRANSFORM CAITHNESS: HUNTER, BE NEAR ME, NOBODY WILL EVER FORGIVE US, THE BACCHAE, BLACK WATCH, ELIZABETH GORDON QUINN and HOME: GLASGOW. For BLACK WATCH, John won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director and a Critics’ Circle Award.

On Broadway, John directed THE GLASS MENAGERIE (also A.R.T.), MACBETH, and ONCE, which won 8 Tony Awards in 2012, including Best Musical and Best Direction of a Musical.

Other work includes: THE AMBASSADOR (Brooklyn Academy of Music), JERUSALEM (West Yorkshire Playhouse), LAS CHICAS DEL TRES Y MEDIA FLOPPIES (Granero Theatre, Mexico City and Edinburgh Festival Fringe), IF DESTROYED TRUE, MERCURY FUR, HELMET and THE STRAITS (Paines Plough), GAGARIN WAY, ABANDONMENT, AMONG UNBROKEN HEARTS, PERFECT DAYS and PASSING PLACES (Traverse, Edinburgh).

John is also working on the stage play of HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD with J.K. Rowling and Jack Thorne, which opened in the West End in June 2016.


Jack Thorne
pic and bio taken from Goodreads

Jack Thorne (born 6 December 1978) is an English screenwriter and playwright.

Born in Bristol, England, he has written for radio, theatre and film, most notably on the TV shows Skins, Cast-offs, This Is England '86, This Is England '88, This Is England '90, The Fades, The Last Panthers and the feature film The Scouting Book for Boys. He currently lives in London.



































Thursday, September 22, 2016

TBR READ-A-THON - UPDATE AND REVIEW




Daily Updates Format

DAY OF THE CHALLENGE/DATE

Day 11 - September 23, 2016

Books Reading: 1

Books Listening To: 1

Pages Read: 237 

Chapters Listened  To:  114

Total Books Read: 1

Total Pages Read: 237

Finished Books: 1


I entered late, so I am not as far as most.

This is the review for the audio book I finished.

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pic and description taken from Goodreads

DESCRIPTION:

Three students: dead.
Carly Johnson: vanished without a trace. 


Two decades have passed since an inferno swept through Elmbridge High, claiming the lives of three teenagers and causing one student, Carly Johnson, to disappear. The main suspect: Kaitlyn, "the girl of nowhere." 

Kaitlyn's diary, discovered in the ruins of Elmbridge High, reveals the thoughts of a disturbed mind. Its charred pages tell a sinister version of events that took place that tragic night, and the girl of nowhere is caught in the center of it all. But many claim Kaitlyn doesn't exist, and in a way, she doesn't - because she is the alter ego of Carly Johnson. 

Carly gets the day. Kaitlyn has the night. It's during the night that a mystery surrounding the Dead House unravels and a dark, twisted magic ruins the lives of each student that dares touch it. 

Debut author Dawn Kurtagich masterfully weaves together a thrilling and terrifying story using psychiatric reports, witness testimonials, video footage, and the discovered diary - and as the mystery grows, the horrifying truth about what happened that night unfolds.

MY REVIEW / THOUGHTS:

This book was so interesting.  I don't think I have ever read a book about DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder a.k.a. Multiple Personality Disorder).  It was fascinating and scary at the same time.  

Carly and Kaitlyn are the same person.  One lives in the day and one lives at night, and they both think they are real.  They leave messages to each other in their diary, so they know what each of them are doing. 

Carly and Kaitlyn are being treated by a Psychotherapist who is convinced that Kaitlyn was developed to protect Carly from the trauma in her life.  Carly knows that something has happened, and that she can Kaitlyn and their little sister Jamie are just trying to survive.  Jamie has been sent to live with someone else, and Carly and Kaitlyn have been sent to a school.

I cannot even begin to tell you how creepy this book was for me.  The mind is such a fascinating thing.  To go through this journey with Carly and Kaitlyn was so intense.  They have a lot of issues, but things in their life seem to just keep going wrong and neither of them can figure it out.  Carly's therapist is trying to have her integrate Kaitlyn and deal with the trauma she has blocked so that she can get better.

There are forces in this book that are far more determined to not let that happen.  

This is a mind trip of a book.  Which I have to admit was kind of awesome.  Nerve racking at times, but awesome.  If you like intense, and psychological thrillers this is a good one.  I don't think the actual book was scary, it was the disorder, and all the things that came with it.

Source:  I bought this book for myself.  I was not compensated in any way for this review.  These are my own PERSONAL thoughts on the book.

Content:  Some language, some talk of sex, and a few acts of sex.

MY RATING:

WHERE TO BUY:

    

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dawn Kurtagich
pic and bio taken from Goodreads

Dawn Kurtagich is a writer of creepy, spooky and psychologically sinister YA fiction, where girls may descend into madness, boys may see monsters in men, and grown-ups may have something to hide. Her debut YA novel, The Dead House, is forthcoming from Hachette in 2015.

By the time she was eighteen, she had been to fifteen schools across two continents. The daughter of a British globe-trotter and single mother, she grew up all over the place, but her formative years were spent in Africa—on a mission, in the bush, in the city and in the desert.

She has been lucky enough to see an elephant stampede at close range, a giraffe tongue at very close range, and she once witnessed the stealing of her (and her friends’) underwear by very large, angry baboons. (This will most definitely end up in a book . . . ) While she has quite a few tales to tell about the jumping African baboon spider, she tends to save these for Halloween!

She writes over at the YA Scream Queens, a young adult blog for all things horror and thriller, and she is a member of the YA League and Author Allsorts.

Her life reads like a YA novel.





TOUR / REVIEW FOR - ELLA'S WILL - BY JESSILYN STEWART PEASLEE


Welcome to my stop on the Ella's Will Blog Tour!

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pic and description taken from Goodreads


DESCRIPTION:


Will Hawkins is just a mere stable boy. How can he ever think to woo Ella, his once-wealthy childhood friend who is stubbornly independent, especially when his competition is the prince? Without any magic or fairy godmothers, Will must show Ella that he is her true prince charming in this perspective twist of the Cinderella story.

MY REVIEW / THOUGHTS:

I just finished Ella and knew I had a tour coming up for Ella's will.  I am so glad I got to be part of this tour.  This book was so good.  

In this re-telling of Cinderella we get to see Will's view of the things that have happened.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE when an author lets us see the "other" side of the story.  It is one of my favorite things.  It doesn't happen too often, but when it does I always grab them and devour them.  I wish we could have all the characters view on the story.  It would be amazing.  Not realistic, but amazing.

Will, is an amazing man.  He is the (bring him home to meet mom and dad) kind of boy.  He and Ella have been friends since they were young.  Will loved Ella's father as his own.  He worked with Ella's father until his death.  When Ella's father died the step mother fired everyone or just quit paying them so they left.  

Will went to work at the Palace in the stables.  Everyone seemed to like him, and he was working hard on his own home "shack" to make a place for him and his family.  Ella had no idea those plans included her.

Will tried to keep quiet in the ways he helped Ella.  He knew that if Ella's step mother knew Will was helping her she would get punished.  So he did things early in the morning or late at night.  Little things so as not to be noticed by anyone but Ella.

When it is announced that the Prince has returned from his travels, and plans to have a ball to find his future wife, Will begins to panic a little.  He has been working up the nerve to tell Ella he loves her.  But this new blip has caused him to reflect whether or not he would be good enough for Ella.

You think you know where the story goes now right? Not with this Cinderella story.    The ending is so wonderful.  You will have to read for yourself to see how it turns out!

Source:  I was given this book as part of a blog tour.  I have not been compensated in any way for this review.  These are my own PERSONAL thoughts on the book.

Content:  CLEAN and wonderful!

A Special Thanks to :  Cedar Fort Publishing for allowing me to participate in this blog!


MY RATING:

WHERE TO BUY:

  


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

An image posted by the author.
pic and description taken from amazon.com