Waiting on Wednesday [27]: Arrows by Melissa Gorzelanczyk

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming books we are looking forward to being released.

My pick for this week is:

Title: Arrows

Author: Melissa Gorzelanczyk

Expected pub. date: January 26th, 2016

Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy

A modern cupid story set in present-day Wisconsin combining the fantastical elements of Greek mythology with the contemporary drama of MTV's Teen Mom.
People don’t understand love. If they did, they’d get why dance prodigy Karma Clark just can’t say goodbye to her boyfriend, Danny. No matter what he says or does or how he hurts her, she can’t stay angry with him . . . and can’t stop loving him. But there’s a reason why Karma is helpless to break things off: she’s been shot with a love arrow.
Aaryn, son of Cupid, was supposed to shoot both Karma and Danny but found out too late that the other arrow in his pack was useless. And with that, Karma’s life changed forever. One pregnancy confirmed. One ballet scholarship lost. And dream after dream tossed to the wind.
A clueless Karma doesn’t know that her toxic relationship is Aaryn’s fault . . . but he’s going to get a chance to make things right. He’s here to convince Danny to man up and be there for Karma. But what if this god from Mount Olympus finds himself falling in love with a beautiful dancer from Wisconsin who can never love him in return?
This fast-paced debut novel explores the internal & external conflicts of a girl who finds herself inexplicably drawn to a boy who seemingly doesn't reciprocate her feelings, touching on the issues of love, sex and responsibility, with a heroine struggling to control her destiny--perfect for fans of Katie McGarry's novels and MTV’s 16 and Pregnant.

Why am I waiting for this book? I saw this one while browsing on Goodreads and I immediately thought that it would be something I would enjoy. I don't know about the Teen Mom part, but at least the part that has to do with Greek mythology is totally my thing. It kind of reminds of My Ex from Hell by Telulah Darling, but I'm really interested in seeing a take on Cupid. Besides, this is the author's debut novel and I'm always excited to find new authors :D

What do you think of my pick for this week WOW? 

Leave me a comment and link me to your WOW. I love reading about upcoming releases and it's just a great way to find new books :)

Have a beautiful Wednesday!

Love,

Top Ten Tuesday [24]: Ten Fictional Families I'd Like to Spend Thanksgiving With.

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish.

This week is Thanksgiving freebie, so I'm listing the fictional families that I would like to have over for  a Thanksgiving dinner. I'm taking "family" in its most broad sense, so I'm including not only biological families but also some of my favorite casts of character that are not necessarily related, but are close friends or that you'd see them spending the holidays together in their fictional universe. Here we go!

1) The Weasleys from Harry Potter: Come on! Who wouldn't? They're like the most amazing family that YA literature has ever seen. Maybe even literature, period. I know they are British and, therefore they wouldn't actually celebrate Thanksgiving but whatever, I'm having them over so they'll have to oblige. I imagine the twins would pull some crazy prank and set something on fire and Mrs. Weasley would go crazy trying to get them to behave while Mr. Weasley would be trying to get me or Harry (because, obviously he's there too) to explain how does the Internet work.

2) The Garrets from My Life Next Door: This is also one of my favorite fictional families. I could picture them so clearly while reading the book that I can totally imagine a really loud and crowded Thanksgiving dinner with them which of course would inevitably spiral into complete chaos. So much fun!

3) The Lightwoods from The Mortal Instruments: This one is kind of especial. I'm assuming that the Lightwoods include at least Alec, Isabelle and Jace and where Jace goes, Clary goes, and where Clary goes Simon goes. On the other hand, if Alec is going to be there, Magnus is too, so I'm expecting every single one of them at my dinner table for a pretty unconventional Thanksgiving. 

4) The Delos from Starcrossed: This family is not particularly one of my favorites because I don't really understand them to be honest. But they're a huge family and most of them have some especial ability that I'm sure would make for a fun evening. 

5) The Bishops from Heist Society: By this I mean not only Kat, his father and Uncle Eddie but also all the guys in the crew, meaning Gabrielle, the Bagshaws, Simon and of course, Hale. This is more like a family by choice than an actual biological family, but I love them nonetheless. For some reason, even though it probably makes no sense at all, I imagine them plotting their next heist while eating turkey and goofing off. They are such a fun bunch that I would love the opportunity to spend some time with them, especially W. W. Hale the Third.

6) The Cullens from Twilight: I know there are as much haters as there are fans of this one. I'm somewhere in the middle, I guess. I have a soft spot for this saga and its characters because they were the ones who practically got me started on my reading YA fiction. I know they could be better written and for some people the Cullens are just creepy, but for me they represent a certain kind of comfort because I've "known" them for so long and I can picture perfectly the whole scene. Emmett would be challenging anyone to an arm wrestling match and Jasper going on and on about the Civil War, while Alice tries to make sure everyone looks their best. Oh... such fun!

7) The Marchs from Little Women: I absolutely love this family, these ladies are adorable and I'm hoping they would bring Laurie too. I wish I could have them act out one of Jo's plays for me, it would be so much fun!

8) The Raven Cycle Cast: Here I mean freaking everyone. Blue's entire crazy family and Gansey's whole gang. For some reason, I've been feeling very nostalgic about this series and I can't wait for the next book, so I guess having them over for Thanksgiving would be a great way to satisfy my need for more of them, for a while, at least. They're such an eclectic mix that I bet it would be freaking hilarious to have them all together.

9) The Vampire Academy Cast: From our current teenage vampire Queen, to her guardians, Rose and Dimitri, and Adrian and Sydney and Eddie and Jill, I want them all on my table for Thanksgiving. This one has to be one of my most loved fictional casts of all time. I think it would be a blast having them all over for the Holidays, even if they drag out a few strigoi on their way to my place, I bet between all of us, we can take them (?) 

10) The Charley Davidson Cast: And last, but not least, I would love to spend Thanksgiving with the hilarious Charley, and her unbelievably sexy husband, with Cookie and Amber, Ubie, Garrett, even the ghosts! What the hell! Everyone's invited! I bet it would be the funniest dinner ever and Charley would manage to get herself into trouble, no doubt, but it would be awesome! Don't you think?

What's on your Top Ten this week? Which fictional family would you like to spend thanksgiving with? Let me know in the comment section below!

Love,

[Review] The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

Title: The Wrath and the Dawn

Author: Renee Ahdieh
Series: The Wrath and the Dawn #1

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Published: May 12th, 2015

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers

Format: Hardcover, 388 pages

One Life to One Dawn.
In a land ruled by a murderous boy-king, each dawn brings heartache to a new family. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, is a monster. Each night he takes a new bride only to have a silk cord wrapped around her throat come morning. When sixteen-year-old Shahrzad's dearest friend falls victim to Khalid, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to be his next bride. Shahrzad is determined not only to stay alive, but to end the caliph's reign of terror once and for all.
Night after night, Shahrzad beguiles Khalid, weaving stories that enchant, ensuring her survival, though she knows each dawn could be her last. But something she never expected begins to happen: Khalid is nothing like what she'd imagined him to be. This monster is a boy with a tormented heart. Incredibly, Shahrzad finds herself falling in love. How is this possible? It's an unforgivable betrayal. Still, Shahrzad has come to understand all is not as it seems in this palace of marble and stone. She resolves to uncover whatever secrets lurk and, despite her love, be ready to take Khalid's life as retribution for the many lives he's stolen. Can their love survive this world of stories and secrets?
Inspired by A Thousand and One Nights, The Wrath and the Dawn is a sumptuous and enthralling read from beginning to end.

Get your copy!

Review

My thoughts:

This book was a hype-monster! Everyone and their mother had read it and loved it by the time I picked it up, so my expectations going into it were pretty high. 

Perhaps it was precisely for that reason that I felt a little disappointed going into it. I found the beginning to be quite slow and I had a hard time trying to connect with the characters. To be completely honest I think I didn't get the world at first... the cultural ambience was new for me and I felt overwhelmed by it at the start; the names drove me insane because I couldn't remember them and then there were too many names and roles starting with K and J for me to actually keep track of who was who or what. 

So I actually had to stop and go read something else before I started hating on the book just because I wasn't getting it. Thankfully, when I came back to it, things started to pick up and after two or three chapters I went from not caring to being unable to put the book down. 

The story is about a girl named Shahrzad whose best friend, Shiva, had to marry and then was killed by the king of Khorasan. But Shiva is only one of many brides that the king has taken and killed merely a night after the wedding, so Shahrzad takes it upon herself to end this cycle of death and find out why the king is killing his wives and hopefully, find a way to make him pay for all the pained he's caused. But in order to do that, she has to volunteer as the next bride and do whatever it takes to stay alive every dawn. 

I loved Shahrzad strategy for staying alive: telling the king a never ending story so he would let her live each night in order to finish it. I've never read the original A Thousand and One Nights, but I more or less know what it's about and I really enjoyed Ahdieh's take on it. At first I thought it was going to be like the center of the story as if it were a retelling, but it wasn't the case. The plot had a mind of its own and it moved forward without the help of the stories after a while. 

Once I got past the initial confusion, it was quite clear for me that the characters were complex, especially Khalid and Shazi. Both of them were multidimensional and had light and shadow within them, which made it hard for me to make up my mind about them. Mot of the time I was reading, I didn't know if I actually liked them or not,  or if I wanted them to fall in love and be together or if I would rather for Shazi to stick to her original plan, but in the end I was rooting for them.

The secondary characters were interesting too. I loved Jalal, with his lightheartedness and ready sarcasm at every occasion, no matter if he was talking to an inferior or to the Caliph himself. I didn't care for Tariq all that much, but I liked his friend, Rahim. 

The one thing I never quite got in the story was the way magic worked. Who had the magic? Was it something you inherited? Was it something you could learn? Was its existence common knowledge or only people from certain circles knew about it? I would've liked to learn more about it since it seemed to matter a great deal to the story.

Overall, I liked it and I would like to read the next one, but it was a tough one to get into. I wish the amazingness that went down near the end could've lasted more. I felt like when I was finally coming to terms with the way of things and I thought that everything was right with the world, the whole thing just exploded on my face, and truly, the ending kind of broke my heart. I'm really hoping that in the next book we'll get back somehow, to that perfect place where we  were before everything went to hell. Fingers crossed!

Rating: 

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About the author

Renee Ahdieh lives in North Carolina (Go Heels!) with her husband Victor and their dog Mushu. Her YA fantasy novel, THE WRATH AND THE DAWN, is available wherever books are sold. In her spare time, she likes to cook, dance salsa, and wreak havoc on the lives of her characters.

She's also a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, as well as an active member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America.

[Review] The Heart of Betrayal by Mary E. Pearson

Title: The Heart of Betrayal

Author: Mary E. Pearson

Series: The Remnant Chronicles #2

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Published: July 7th, 2015

Publisher: Henry Holt

Format: Hardcover, 470 pages

Held captive in the barbarian kingdom of Venda, Lia and Rafe have little chance of escape. Desperate to save Lia's life, her erstwhile assassin, Kaden, has told the Vendan Komizar that she has the gift, and the Komizar's interest in Lia is greater than anyone could have foreseen.
Meanwhile, nothing is straightforward: There's Rafe, who lied to Lia but has sacrificed his freedom to protect her; Kaden, who meant to assassinate her but has now saved her life; and the Vendans, whom Lia always believed to be savages. Now that she lives among them, however, she realizes that may be far from the truth. Wrestling with her upbringing, her gift, and her sense of self, Lia must make powerful choices that will affect her country... and her own destiny.

 Get your copy!

Review

My thoughts:

This is the sequel to The Kiss of Deception and I'm pleased to say that I enjoyed it more than the first book. This book picks up right where the previous one left off and it's set entirely on Venda, the enemy territory.

Lia has been taken captive and now she's being held prisoner by the Komizar. Rafe, in an attempt to save her, makes up a story about being an emissary for the prince of Dalbrech looking for an alliance with Venda and gets himself taken into Venda too. Kaden is falling for Lia and having trouble deciding where his loyalties lie, with the girl of his dreams or with the man who saved his life. Essentially and put simply: everything is a big fat mess for our characters.

Venda is such a captivating place and here the writing was excellent at painting a picture for me. I could see it so clearly with all its colors and different kinds of people. It was really well done in my opinion. The funny thing is that I went into it expecting to hate it as much as Lia, so I was pleasantly surprised to find it to be such a mesmerizing location.

Against all odds, Lia starts making a few friends and allies in Venda and with their help plus a whole lot of determination on her part, she's becoming a force to be reckoned with. She's starting to grasp the meaning of her gift, which just adds to her resourcefulness. In this book, we see her make use of all her talents, especially the ones that help her make others believe she's playing by the rules, when in reality, she's making up a completely different game as she goes along.

The problem with Venda is that you have the good kind of people and the awful kind of people like in any place, but here, the bad are the ones that provide for all the rest, so that makes the good people do terrible things in order to survive. Enter here the whole political drama! There's a shit-ton of political intrigue in this book and I finally got to understand what the hell was going on with the war between Venda and Morrighan, and Dalbrech by extension.  Thankfully, in this book, we get a lot of backstories for the Komizar, Kaden, and Venda as a country of sorts, which helps round up the whole story as a whole a lot better. 

The so-called love triangle is more like a love square (?) now that the Komizar has taken a particular interest in Lia and wants her for himself, so he can add to his already considerable power. We knew from the first book that Lia's heart belongs to Rafe, but in this one, Lia's life depends on her being able to convince everyone that she loves Kaden and holds no interest for Rafe, because the assassin is the only one who can do anything big enough to help her situation. And in all that convincing she does, I actually started to doubt her, either she's very good at deceiving others or she's very good at deceiving herself. You'll have to judge for yourself!

Overall, I think this was a great second installment, it helped me to understand the complexity of the world and it gave me a lot more perspective on its characters while building up the action and letting every piece fall into place and setting up for the next book to be explosive. I'm really excited about this series' finale!

Rating:

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About the author

Mary E. Pearson is the award-winning author of The Jenna Fox Chronicles, The Miles Between, A Room on Lorelei, and Scribbler of Dreams. She writes full-time from her home office in California where she lives with her husband and two golden retrievers.

Waiting on Wednesday [26]: The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming books we are looking forward to being released.

My pick for this week is:

Title: The Love That Split the World
Author: Emily Henry
Expected pub. date: January 26th, 2016
Genre: YA Sci-Fi / Time travel

Natalie Cleary must risk her future and leap blindly into a vast unknown for the chance to build a new world with the boy she loves. Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start... until she starts seeing the “wrong things.” They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.

Why am I waiting for this book?  This one is another really promising debut novel. I think the premise sounds pretty cool. I've been wanting to get into time travel novels a bit more and this one sounds perfect for me to do just that. It makes me think of The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater for some reason and I really like that series but I have never found anything similar, so maybe this is it! I'm intrigued to see how this one turns out, so fingers crossed!

What do you think of my pick for this week WOW? 

Leave me a comment and link me to your WOW. I love reading about upcoming releases and it's just a great way to find new books :)

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Love,

Top Ten Tuesday [23]: Top Ten Favorite Quotes of 2015

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish.

This week is one of my favorite Top Ten topics! I absolutely love quotes and I love highlighting them or marking them on my books. So, today I'm listing some of my favorite quotes of book I've read this year. There are some really deep ones, some that I just thought were funny, the ones that for some reason resonated with me and some of them were just too epic to pass out. Here we go!

#1

"The thing is, being lonely is like walking in the cold without a coat. It’s uncomfortable, but eventually you go numb. Once you get used to not being lonely, though, the shock of going back is like having your down comforter yanked off at six o’clock on a Minnesota December morning".

From: The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie Hall

#2

"I don’t understand people. They smile when they are mad. They hug people they hate. They steal from people they genuinely love. And they are jealous of babies"

From: Brighter Than the Sun by Darynda Jones

#3

"Behind them, across the hall, the dancers shattered their roses on the floor, and Aedion grinned at his queen as the entire world went to hell" 

From: Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas 

#4

"If there's one thing I've learned, it's this: We all want everything to be okay. We don't even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough.”

From: Every Day by David Levithan 

#5

'Are you in a suit?' I managed at last, my voice choking up. 'You didn’t have to dress up for me.'

'Quiet, Sage,' he said. 'I’ll make the hilarious one-liners during this daring rescue.” 

From: Silver Shadows by Richelle Mead

#6

"The thing is...what they don’t tell you about forgiveness is this—you don’t give it for the other person’s sake, but your own." 

From: In the Afterlight by Alexandra Bracken 

#7

"I didn't know someone could love me like this," she said. "Could love me and love me and love me without...needing space." Lincoln wasn't asleep. He rolled on top of her.

"There's no air in space," he said.

From: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

#8

"Just for the record, saying 'The surprise hasn't started yet' while pulling something out of your pants is super creepy."

From: Velvet by Temple West

#9

"I'm not a sucker for happily ever afters, but if these two characters don't get theirs I might climb inside this e-reader and lock them both inside that damn garage forever."

From: Hopeless by Colleen Hoover

#10

"In new situations, all the trickiest rules are the ones nobody bothers to explain to you. (And the ones you can't Google.)"

From: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Honorary mentions

"Pity those who don't feel anything at all."

From:  A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 

"The thing I realize is, that it's not what you take, it's what you leave." 

From: All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven 

"Besides the alternate universe offered by a book, the quiet space of a museum was my favorite place to go. My mom said I was an escapist at heart . . . that I preferred imaginary worlds to the real one. It’s true that I’ve always been able to yank myself out of this world and plunge myself into another." 

From: Die for Me by Amy Plum 

What's on your Top Ten this week? What's your favorite quote on my list? What quotes made it to your list? Let me know in the comment section below!

Love,

[Review] Velvet Undercover by Teri Brown

Title: Velvet Undercover

Author: Teri Brown

Genre: Young Adult Historical Thriller

Published: October 20th, 2015

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Format: Kindle Edition, 336 pages

Samantha Donaldson’s family has always done its duty for the British Crown. In the midst of World War I, seventeen-year-old Sam follows in their footsteps, serving her country from the homefront as a Girl Guide and messenger for the intelligence organization MI5. After her father disappears on a diplomatic mission, she continues their studies of languages, high-level mathematics, and complex puzzles and codes, hoping to make him proud.When Sam is asked to join the famed women’s spy group La Dame Blanche she’s torn—this could be the adventure she’s dreamed of, but how can she abandon her mother, who has already lost a husband to the war? But when her handlers reveal shocking news, Sam realizes there’s no way she can refuse the exciting and dangerous opportunity.Her acceptance leads her straight into the heart of enemy territory on a mission to extract the most valuable British spy embedded in Germany, known to the members of LDB only as Velvet. Deep undercover within the court of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Samantha must navigate the labyrinthine palace and its many glamorous—and secretive—residents to complete her assignment. To make matters worse she finds herself forming a forbidden attraction to the enemy-a dangerously handsome German guard. In a place where personal politics are treacherously entangled in wartime policy, can Samantha discover the truth and find Velvet before it’s too late…for them both?From author Teri Brown comes the thrilling story of one girl’s journey into a deadly world of spycraft and betrayal—with unforgettable consequences.

Get your copy!

Review

My thoughts:

This book kind of blew me away to be completely honest. I've never read anything like it. I didn't even expect to enjoy it as much as I did because I generally don't like historical fiction, but this was pretty amazing!

I loved the historical setting for a change... It was really atmospheric and mesmerizing. I enjoyed the plot too and I have to say I didn't see the many twists at the end coming.

Samantha has recently graduated with honors from a special and selective group that educates young women. She has a special talent with languages and codes so she's been approached by a governmental organization, the MI6 trying to recruit her for a dangerous mission as a war spy for England, as a part of the LDB, a group of female spies that work mostly as undercover agents.

Sam's father has been missing for a while and is presumed dead by the government, but she is not satisfied with that answer, so she accepts joining the LDB in exchange for information of her father whereabouts.

Miss Tickford is appointed as Sam's handler and she's the one who'll provide her training and first assignment. Sam has to go undercover as a governess and immerse herself in the German royal family no less. Her mission is to find another undercover agent whose code name is Velvet.

But the mission seems to get more and more difficult as the time goes by and Sam starts to doubt herself at every turn. She will have to choose very carefully who she trusts and will have to keep all her wits about her if she's going to make it out alive.

The whole premise is fascinating. I have only basic knowledge about World War I, so I didn't know much about MI6 and the whole espionage going on, so I don't know if what's going on in this story is historically accurate, but I enjoyed it immensely. There's so much at stake for the protagonist and every tiny bit of information she receives changes everything in her plans, which is definitely a great way to keep a reader on the edge of her seat, thank you very much...

I kept waiting for that dull moment that would make me put the book down and then never return to it again, as it happens often when I pick up historical fiction, but the truth is I couldn't let go of the goddamn book.

The characters the protagonist meets are really interesting and most of them really mysterious too which makes you doubt everyone. I kept yelling at the book like "That's gotta be Velvet!" every time a new character popped up. 

Overall, I think this was a great book and I would love to read more about what happened after everything went down. It has an epilogue and you more or less know what happened at the end so don't get me wrong, you get resolution, but still, the world and characters were so fascinating that I wouldn't mind reading a sequel. I'm glad I gave it a chance!

Rating:

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About the author

Well behaved women rarely make history. Teri Brown lived that quote way before she ever even heard it. The two things she is most proud of, (besides her children), is that she jumped out of an airplane once and she beat the original Legend of Zelda video game. She is a novel writer, head banger, pet keeper, math hater, cocktail drinker, booty shaker, book reader, city slicker, food fixer, French kisser, rule breaker, wine sipper and word scribbler. She loves her husband, kitties and chocolate.

[Review] Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet by Darynda Jones

Title: Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet

Author: Darynda Jones

Series: Charley Davidson #4

Genre: Adult Urban Fantasy

Published: October 30th, 2012

Publisher: Piatkus

Format: Paperback, 308 pages

Welcome to the world of grim reaper extraordinaire Charley Davidson. Try as she might, there’s no avoiding her destiny.Sometimes being the grim reaper really is, well, grim. And since Charley’s last case went so awry, she has taken a couple of months off to wallow in the wonders of self-pity. But when a woman shows up on her doorstep convinced someone is trying to kill her, Charley has to force herself to rise above...or at least get dressed. It becomes clear something is amiss when everyone the woman knows swears she’s insane. But the more they refute the woman’s story, the more Charley believes it.
In the meantime, the sexy, sultry son of Satan, Reyes Farrow, is out of prison and out of Charley’s life, as per her wishes and several perfectly timed death threats. But his absence has put a serious crimp in her sex life. While there are other things to consider, like the fact that the city of Albuquerque has been taken hostage by an arsonist, Charley is having a difficult time staying away. Especially when it looks like Reyes may be involved.
Just when life was returning to normal, Charley is thrust back into the world of crime, punishment, and the devil in blue jeans in this hilarious fourth installment in the New York Times bestselling series.

Get your copy!

Review

My thoughts:

I can’t even with this series… Darynda Jones freaking read my mind, I could swear it! Just when I finished the third book, I was saying: “It’s kind of suspicious that after going through so much, Charley’s mind is still in one piece. If I were her I wouldn’t step out of my house again, not even for a million dollars”. And it would be kind of annoying and unrealistic of her to just get back on her feet and keep going as if nothing had happened… So, she doesn’t.

In this installment, Charley is kind of depressed, suffering from PTS after Earl’s attack. She won’t go out of her house and has been hoarding boxes of mostly useless things she’s been impulsively buying. She’s almost broke and hasn’t taken on a case for two months.

Her family and friends planned an intervention and try to get her out of the house, but she’s not making much progress until she meets Harper, a young woman who’s been terrorized her whole life and whom everyone thinks is just trying to get her parents attention. When Charley decides to take on her case, we get some of the old Charley back, this badass heroine ready to save the day and cause some trouble, but there’s still some part of her that will never be the same.

Of course, Charley finds herself in several tricky situations throughout the book and she’ll have to learn and learn fast about the power within her because there’s something wicked coming her way.

I loved this book even more than the others. It just felt so real to me. Charley has so many layers as a character that I’m always amazed at every new glimpse of her that I get.

Then we have Reyes who is hotter than ever –if that’s even possible- in this installment and I just don’t know if I can handle him anymore. 

This one, I think is my favorite book from the whole series. It’s just right on point. I went straight for the next book as I've done with the other ones in this series. I don't know what I'm going to do when I'm fully caught up or when the series is over.

Again, if you -for some reason; any reason- haven’t read this series yet, please give it a try. It’s so good I wouldn’t want you to miss it.

Rating:

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About the author

NYTimes and USA Today Bestselling Author Darynda Jones has won numerous awards for her work, including a prestigious RITA, a Golden Heart, and a Daphne du Maurier. As a born storyteller, she grew up spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by, annoying man and beast alike. She currently has two series with St. Martin's Press, the Charley Davidson Series and the Darklight Trilogy. Darynda lives in the Land of Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband of more than 25 years and two beautiful sons, the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys. She can be found at www.daryndajones.com.

Waiting on Wednesday [25]: Shallow Graves by Kali Walace

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming books we are looking forward to being released.

My pick for this week is:

Title: Shallow Graves
Author: Kali Walace
Expected pub. date: January 26th, 2016
Genre: YA Paranormal Horror

For fans of Holly Black and Nova Ren Suma, a gripping, hauntingly atmospheric novel about murder, revenge, and a world where monsters—human and otherwise—lurk at the fringes.
When seventeen-year-old Breezy Lin wakes up in a shallow grave one year after her death, she doesn’t remember who killed her or why. All she knows is that she’s somehow conscious—and not only that, she’s able to sense who around her is hiding a murderous past. In life, Breezy was always drawn to the elegance of the universe and the mystery of the stars. Now she must set out to find answers and discover what is to become of her in the gritty, dangerous world to which she now belongs—where killers hide in plain sight and a sinister cult is hunting for strange creatures like her. What she finds is at once empowering, redemptive, and dangerous.
Tense, complex, and wholly engaging, Shallow Graves is a stunning first novel from Kali Wallace.

Why am I waiting for this book? I don't usually keep track of debut authors and most of the time I end up reading the new book or new series by an old favorite author, but next year I plan on deliberately reading a few debut novels to get me out of my comfort zone and give a new author a try. This one sounds really good, the theme being paranormal is something I know I like, but the concept seems original enough to be its own new thing, so I'm really excited to give this one a chance.

What do you think of my pick for this week WOW? 

Leave me a comment and link me to your WOW. I love reading about upcoming releases and it's just a great way to find new books :)

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Love,