Category Archives: Book Genre

2015 Book #64 – Whiskey & Charlie by Annabel Smith

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Fiction, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist, Reading Challenges by

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Title: Whiskey & Charlie
Author: Annabel Smith
Date finished: 6/27/15
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication Date: April 7, 2015
Pages in book: 317
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Terryville Public Library

Blurb from the cover:

A captivating debut novel of brothers who have drifted apart and the accident that will determine their future, by an unforgettable new voice in fiction.
Whiskey and Charlie might have come from the same family, but they’d tell you two completely different stories about growing up. Whiskey is everything Charlie is not – bold, daring, carefree – and Charlie blames his twin brother for always stealing the limelight, always getting everything, always pushing Charlie back. By the time the twins reach adulthood, they are barely even speaking to each other.
When they were just boys, the secret language they whispered back and forth over their crackly walkie-talkies connected them, in a way. The two-way alphabet (alpha, bravo, charlie, delta) became their code, their lifeline. But as the brothers grew up, they grew apart.
When Charlie hears that Whiskey has been in a terrible accident and has slipped into a coma, Charlie can’t make sense of it. Who is he without Whiskey? As days and weeks slip by and the chances of Whiskey recovering grow ever more slim, Charlie is forced to consider that he may never get to say all the things he wants to say. A compelling and unforgettable novel about rivalry and redemption, Whiskey & Charlie is perfect for anyone whose family has ever been less than picture-perfect.

My rating: 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist under the “a book set during Christmas” check box since most of the story happens in the space between Thanksgiving and just after New Years. Charlie was close with his brother Whiskey when they were younger but now as adults they barely speak to each other. When Whiskey is involved in a freak accident though and ends up badly injured and in a coma, Charlie wants nothing more than to have more time to make amends with his brother. What follows is a combination of Charlie’s memories from his childhood with Whiskey, stories from Whiskey and Charlie interacting as adults leading up to before Whiskey’s accident, and the agonizing progress of Whiskey’s path to recovery.
One of the things I really liked about this book was the use of the NATO phonetic alphabet and its part in how the story was told. Charlie and Whiskey were given walkie-talkies as children and one of their neighbors taught them the NATO phonetic alphabet. That’s actually why Whiskey is called as such and is not called William by anyone but his mother, even though that is his real name. Anyways, each chapter represented one letter in the NATO phonetic alphabet and the story in that chapter was always somehow connected to the word representing that letter in the alphabet. The Bravo chapter was about their pet dog whose name was Bravo, the India chapter was about a job that Charlie and Whiskey worked on together in India, and so forth. I thought that was an interesting and different way to tell the story. That being said, telling the story in this way caused there to be a bit of jumping around between time frames to tie to whatever letter that chapter was for. The flow of the story wasn’t always easy for me to follow. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book but I did notice the issues I was having.
Overall I thought this was a great story. Grief and guilt and forgiveness are major themes in this book and we take an in-depth look at Charlie’s insecurities with the many people in his life. Charlie’s character was a bit frustrating for me because he really did act like he was better than a lot of people in the story, like his feelings were always more important than someone else’s. Other than that though I think this was a good book.
The bottom line: While the subject matter can feel a bit heavy at times, I thought that this was a very true depiction of a family traveling through stages of grief. I would recommend this book.

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2015 Book #63 – The Marriage Season by Linda Lael Miller

Posted in Book reviews, Book series, Brides of Bliss County, Contemporary romance by

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Title: The Marriage Season
Author: Linda Lael Miller
Date finished: 6/22/15
Genre:  Romance
Publisher: HQN Books
Publication Date: May 26, 2015
Pages in book: 254
Stand alone or series: Brides of Bliss County book #3
Where I got the book from: Terryville Public Library

Blurb from the cover:

Since Hadleigh, Melody and Bex—the best of best friends—entered into a marriage pact, two of them have found (and married) the men of their hearts. But Bex doesn’t think she’ll be as fortunate as the others. Her own first love died years ago in a faraway war, and Bex has lost hope for a happy marriage of her own. She concentrates on her business, a successful chain of fitness clubs, instead.
Then, when single father Tate Calder comes to Mustang Creek with his two sons in tow, who befriend Bex’s eight-year-old nephew, she and the handsome, aloof newcomer are constantly thrown together. But is the marriage season over? Or can a man with doubts about love be the right husband for a woman who wants it all?

My rating: 3.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I have been a fan of Linda Lael Miller’s books in the past (there’s just something about those cowboys) so I was excited when the Brides of Bliss County series came out. I had already read the first two in the series and honestly the second one left me a little frustrated so I was eager to get to the third book to try and get some things straightened out. This third book in what I think is a trilogy tells the story of Tate Calder, friend of the guys from the first two books who just moved to Mustang Creek, and Bex Stuart (which I thnk is cool, my nickname is college was Bex) best friend of the girls from the first two books. Now I just have to say that this premise alone is just so highly unrealistic to me. Has there ever really been in real life a set of three guy friends who all within a year decided they loved this set of three girl friends? And two of the sets had known each other like their whole lives. It just always feels far-fetched to me.
Anyways so they’re the last single ones in this six-pack so they fall in love. That’s pretty much the story. Tate has two boys and he’s really sweet with them and Bex has a nephew that she has to take care of for a lot of the book that’s the same age as one of Tate’s boys.
So overall I guess I just had a few issues with this story. The conversations felt stilted and a little rushed, leaving the characters flat and hard to connect with. And the reactions of the characters are just so far from what I would react as. Like they just kind of take everything in stride, nothing is ever really an “issue,” Like when Tara all of a sudden just goes to Denver, Bex is just like oh ok I’m glad she is out of this bad situation then. If that were me I would have been like WHAT ABOUT YOUR SON GROW THE HELL UP YOU ARE A GROWN ASS WOMAN. So some differences in thought processes there I guess. Don’t get me wrong, the book wasn’t bad and it was actually exactly what I needed at this moment in my reading journey. It was a light and somewhat easy read and it was overall pleasant i would say. My complaints here I think tend to be more general, the book was still a good book.
The bottom line: I would recommend this book to anyone who 1) likes books by LLM, 2) has read the other 2 books in the series, or 3) is looking for a nice, light beach read. Otherwise I would say you can probably skip.

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2015 Book #62 – I’ll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist, Reading Challenges, Young Adult by

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Title: I’ll Meet You There
Author: Heather Demetrios
Date finished: 6/20/15
Genre:  Young adult – romance-ish, coming of age tale
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: February 3, 2015
Pages in book: 379
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Terryville Public Library

Blurb from the cover:

If seventeen-year-old Skylar Evans were a typical Creek View girl, her future would involve a double-wide trailer, a baby on her hip, and the graveyard shift at Taco Bell. But after graduation, the only thing standing between straightedge Skylar and art school are three minimum-wage months of summer. Skylar can taste the freedom–that is, until her mother loses her job and everything starts coming apart. Torn between her dreams and the people she loves, Skylar realizes everything she’s ever worked for is on the line.
Nineteen-year-old Josh Mitchell had a different ticket out of Creek View: the Marines. But after his leg is blown off in Afghanistan, he returns home, a shell of the cocksure boy he used to be.
What brings Skylar and Josh together is working at the Paradise–a quirky motel off California’s dusty Highway 99. Despite their differences, their shared isolation turns into an unexpected friendship and soon, something deeper.

My rating: 4.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist under the “a book at the bottom of your to-read list” check box since it wasn’t even really on my to-read list to begin with. I saw this book in a BookPage publication earlier this year and while I thought it sounded interesting, I didnt add it to my TBR list at the time since the list is already just so overwhelmingly long. I did one of those calculator things and it was going ot take me like 15 years to read all the books on my current to-read list. And since I add more books to the list every week than I read and take off the list every week, its pretty much never going to end! But when I saw it at the Terryville Public Library a couple weeks ago I was on a YA rampage (I checked out 5 new YA fiction books that day) I decided to give it a try. And boy am I glad I did because it was excellent.
The main male character of the story was a Marine who was recently injured in combat and is home on leave while he recovers. Josh has always been a bad-boy and a ladies man in Creek View and even though he returns injured from the war, the town doesn’t really expect him to be any different. And Skylar is a straight-edge girl who is set on escaping this small ho-dunk town and plans to go to San Francisco for college in the fall. But these two can’t seem to stay away from each other and over the summer what used to be a casual friendship turns into something more.
Reading this book was an important experience for me. My husband is a Marine and spent some time overseas in Afghanistan, and while thankfully he came back uninjured physically, there are a lot of mental ramifications for experiencing what soldiers have to go through in a war. There were many times during the book during Josh’s point of view when I heard the parts in my husband’s voice, and (while I’ve never experienced what they experience personally and therefore can’t say this with certainty) I think the author did an outstanding job of capturing what it feels like when a soldier all of a sudden isn’t a soldier anymore. Transitioning back into civilian life is difficult and for some impossible. This book was moving and touching and talked about some extremely relevant topics. I think it was a great book and something everyone should read.
The bottom line: I thought this was a great book, I’m not sure if it meant more to me because I’m connected to a Marine but the characters in this story really moved me. I would definitely recommend this book.

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2015 Book #61 – The Anxiety Toolkit by Alice Boyes

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Non-fiction, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist, Reading Challenges by

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Title: The Anxiety Toolkit
Author: Alice Boyes, PhD
Date finished: 6/20/15
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: Perigee Books
Publication Date: March 3, 2015
Pages in book: 206
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Terryville Public Library

Blurb from the cover:

Do you overthink before taking action? Are you prone to making negative predictions? Do you worry about the worst that could happen? Do you take negative feedback very hard? Are you self-critical? Does anything less than perfect performance feel like failure?
If any of these issues resonate with you, you’re probably suffering from some degree of anxiety, and you’re not alone. The good news: while reducing your anxiety level to zero isn’t possible or useful (anxiety can actually be helpful!), you can learn to successfully manage symptoms – such as excessive rumination, hesitation, fear of criticism and paralysing perfection.
In The Anxiety Toolkit, Dr. Alice Boyes translates powerful, evidence-based tools used in therapy clinics into tips and tricks you can employ in everyday life. Whether you have an anxiety disorder, or are just anxiety-prone by nature, you’ll discover how anxiety works, strategies to help you cope with common anxiety ‘stuck’ points and a confidence that – anxious or not – you have all the tools you need to succeed in life and work.

My rating: 4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist under the “a nonfiction book” check box since this was a nonfiction book (duh). I have struggled with anxiety for pretty much my whole life. It isn’t debilitating for me, just annoying sometimes. Its a family trait on my mom’s side and while I do feel like I have a pretty good handle on it, I feel like there is always room for improvement. So when I saw this book at the library I thought it would be a great book to read to try and get a better handle on my issues. I think that the book was pretty helpful, it presented a bunch of helpful tips for overcoming anxiety. I’m glad I read it!
The bottom line: This is a good book for people with anxiety, it has some great tips for how to deal with anxiety issues.

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2015 Book #60 – The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Book series, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist, Reading Challenges, Red Queen series, Young Adult by

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Title: The Red Queen
Author: Victoria Aveyard
Date finished: 6/20/15
Genre: Young Adult – Dystopian/Fantasy
Publisher: Harper Teen
Publication Date: February 10, 2015
Pages in book: 383
Stand alone or series: #1 in the Red Queen series (#2 is The Glass Sword and will be released 2/9/16!!!!!)
Where I got the book from: Terryville Public Library

Blurb from the cover:

Graceling meets The Selection in debut novelist Victoria Aveyard’s sweeping tale of seventeen-year-old Mare, a common girl whose once-latent magical power draws her into the dangerous intrigue of the king’s palace. Will her power save her or condemn her?
Mare Barrow’s world is divided by blood–those with common, Red blood serve the Silver- blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities. Mare is a Red, scraping by as a thief in a poor, rural village, until a twist of fate throws her in front of the Silver court. Before the king, princes, and all the nobles, she discovers she has an ability of her own.
To cover up this impossibility, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard–a growing Red rebellion–even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction. One wrong move can lead to her death, but in the dangerous game she plays, the only certainty is betrayal.

My rating: 4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist under the “a book with a color in the title” check box since (duh) the title has a color in it. Obviously I’ve heard a lot about this book in the past couple months. This book rocketed up the popularity scale even before it was released, and there are even talks  right now to make it into a movie (Elizabeth Banks is rumored to be looking into producing the movie). With all of the recent dystopian young adult novels, I can understand why this book really caught on. This book tells the story of Mare Barrow, a Red who is sick to death of the Silver’s power. As a slight background, the Reds are the workers, the servants, the slaves and what not. The Silvers are the royalty and the important people, and their blood is actually Silvers. Oh and Silvers have powers. Like telekinesis and making plants grow and water nymphs and stuff like that.
So it turns out that Mare has powers as well. Even though she’s a Red, she can control electricity and can create it too. When the king finds out about this, he convinces Mare to portray to the population that she is a long lost Silver princess who was raised in a Red household. There is a rebellion rising up in the streets though, the Scarlet Guard, and they have a plot to over take the government. The population of Reds of tired of spending their whole lives working so hard to never get ahead and to watch their children and their children’s children toil away their lives in the same manner.
Overall I thought this book was very good. There was enough action to keep you consistently interested and there were enough plot twists to keep you on your toes. The main character (Mare) reminds me a lot of Katniss from Hunger Games. Mare is a very strong character and sometimes overly headstrong and a little tom-boy-ish. It was a solid book but it wasn’t my favorite book ever. Good story line though, I was interested throughout and honestly I didn’t want to put it down.
The bottom line: This was a very good book and I can see why it has gained a lot of popularity since it was released. I would definitely recommend that people give this book a try. It might not be for everyone but I thought it was great.

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2015 Book #59 – Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver

Posted in Book reviews, Young Adult by

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Title: Vanishing Girls
Author: Lauren Oliver
Date finished: 6/17/15
Genre: Young Adult – Thriller
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: March 10, 2015
Pages in book: 357
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Terryville Public Library

Blurb from the cover:

New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver delivers a gripping story about two sisters inexorably altered by a terrible accident.
Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before the accident that left Dara’s beautiful face scarred and the two sisters totally estranged. When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it’s too late.
In this edgy and compelling novel, Lauren Oliver creates a world of intrigue, loss, and suspicion as two sisters search to find themselves, and each other.

My rating: 3.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book was a little weird. Dara and Nick are supposed to be best friends and sisters and then an accident supposedly marks their separation and they don’t talk to each other for months. Its really what happens right before the accident but you’ll find all that out. Anyway, their supposed to be such good friends but the description of their relationship is awful. Also there is a LOT of underage drinking in this book. Like every person you are introduced with who is in high school is getting drunk on a regular basis. Where are they getting all this alcohol? And do their parents really just not notice that their kids are drunk every weekend? There are a lot of heavy drugs mentioned in connection with Dara as well. I know when parents get divorced they can sometimes become a little more absent in their children’s lives but still, no one besides Nick noticed that there were weird pills in Dara’s room?
Besides the drug thing and the slightly intense sibling rivalry for “best friends,” this book was pretty good. I was hooked fairly quickly, though the first half of the book was a little slower than the second half. I liked the story line and I was interested in what the reason for the accident was and where Madeline Snow was and what the hell was really going on. I can 100% say that I never saw the twist at the end coming and to be honest when it was revealed my first thought was “no way you read that right, better go backwards a little and read it over.” But turns out I read it correctly, it was just a little confusing. The plot twist at the end was a great twist but the way it was done was a little far-reached to me. Still very good though, I usually can see twists coming but I never saw this one coming. 
The bottom line: Eh. It was ok. Not my favorite but wasn’t awful either. There were some things about it that bothered me I little. You could try it I guess.

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2015 Book #58 – The Wrath & The Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Book series, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist, Reading Challenges, The Saga of Shahrzad and Khalid, Young Adult by

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Title: The Wrath & The Dawn
Author: Renee Ahdieh
Date finished: 6/16/15 (12:02am so technically the 16th, lol)
Genre: Young Adult – Fairy tale retelling, romance
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: May 12, 2015
Pages in book: 388
Stand alone or series: #1 in The Saga of Shahrzad and Khalid

Blurb from the cover:

Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi’s wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.
She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.

My rating: 4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist under the “a book with a love triangle” check box since there is a love triangle between Shazi and Khalid and Shazi and Tariq. Just as a quick aside, I never understood why its a love triangle. If you think about it, both boys are in love with Shazi but they’re not like in love with each other so why are they technically connected in the last leg of the love triangle? I think it makes more sense just to call it a love angle. I don’t know, this has bothered me. Anyways, I saw this book listed in a few recent publications, including a recent BookPage newsletter, and here and there on listings of books to read this summer or books to look out for. This is the author’s first book and it was just great!
So this book was inspired by A Thousand and One Nights which is a collection of stories and folk tales, also known as the Arabian Nights. I think that these stories are fairly widely heard of, and the premise is well known. The connection between the inspiration and the resulting novel is obvious, though this story is entirely its own and I thought it was very creative. I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever read anything else like this. And not only was it creative but it was beautifully written and the descriptions of the clothing and the scenery and just everything was wonderfully done. I was hooked into the story from the beginning, dying (ha) to know why a bride had to die each morning. I love Shazi’s character and her growth through the novel was easy to follow and enchanting to experience. I really don’t want to talk too much about the plot because I don’t want to give anything away. There are a lot of different pieces in play in this novel and I had no idea that the story was going to continue after this book. I think it was my lack of knowledge that left me feeling overly frustrated in the end, especially since we will have to wait a year for the second book to be released. Overall I really just loved this book though and I will wait patiently (or at least try to) for the next book to come out.
The bottom line: EVERYONE GO READ THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW. I don’t know how I will be able to continue living until the next book comes out NEXT YEAR! I loved this book. Just loved it.

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2015 Book #57 – The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

Posted in Book Clubs, Book reviews, Fiction, Historical fiction, Terryville - Fiction Lovers by

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Title: The Light Between Oceans
Author: M. L. Stedman
Date finished: 6/14/15
Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher: Scribner
Publication Date: July 31, 2012
Pages in book: 343
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.
Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

My rating: 4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I read this book for the Terryville Library’s Fiction Lover’s Book Discussion group. I have been thinking about joining the group for awhile but even though it is only one night a month, I always find it hard trying to add one more thing into my schedule. I realized a couple months ago though that I have such a passion for reading and that I get such joy out of discussing good books with other people that I really should be making this group more of a priority. I had planned to start going with the May meeting (the book was one of the Liane Moriarty books and she’s been on my to read list for awhile) but we were on vacation when they were meeting in May so I decided to wait for the June meeting. And when I saw what the book for the June meeting was, I was excited since this book is on my to read list as well. And thank goodness I was able to finish the book since the meeting is tomorrow! (I’m writing this on Sunday 6/14 and waiting to post it until after the meeting tomorrow so I don’t give away my thoughts!)
I was hooked on this story from the very beginning. And though it was a tiny bit slow to start up in the beginning, the last half of the book just flew by for me, I couldn’t put it down. I could barely convince myself to look away from the pages long enough to eat my dinner. The characters of the story will completely draw you in and you’ll feel as if you’re there living on Janus with the Sherbournes and you’ll be a witness to everything that happens through the story. The emotions that are woven into the story will take your breath away. When you’ve raised a baby its whole life, even if that baby isn’t biologically yours, is it right to have that baby taken away? What is really right and wrong in a situation like that? What is fair? The contents of this book and the questions it brings up in the reader’s mind are just so thought provoking. What would you do if you were in this exact situation? Though for much of the book I was mad at Isabella for some of the choices she made, once she fell in love with that baby, I can’t say that I can know whether I would have done anything differently.
For those of you who would like to have your own book discussion with this book, here is a site with some reading discussion questions you can use.

The bottom line: I loved this book so so much. It was amazingly touching and moving and just so great. Everyone should read this as soon as possible, be ready though it’s going to tug hard at your heart strings.

Favorite quotes:

“He struggles to make sense of it- all this love, so bent out of shape, refracted, like light through the lens.”

“You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things.”

“I’ve learned the hard way that to have any kind of a future you’ve got to give up hope of ever changing your past”

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2015 Book #56 – Lightning by Dean Koontz

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Fiction, Reading Challenges, TBR Pile Reading Challenge (Roof Beam Reader), Thriller by

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Title: Lightning
Author: Dean Koontz
Date finished: 6/12/15
Genre: Fiction – Thriller
Publisher: G Putnam Sons
Publication Date: 1988
Pages in book: 355
Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Blurb from the cover:

In the midst of a raging blizzard, lightning struck on the night Laura Shane was born. And a mysterious blond-haired stranger showed up just in time to save her from dying.
Years later, in the wake of another storm, Laura will be saved again. For someone is watching over her. But just as lightning illuminates, darkness always follows close behind.

My rating: 2.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for the Roof Beam Reader TBR Pile Reading Challenge, #3 on the list I set for myself at the beginning of this year. One of my friends (technically my best friend’s mom and my mom’s best friend) wanted me to read this book to try something new and to see if I would like something a little darker/scarier. She originally wanted me to read something by Stephen King (if I remember correctly) but gave me this book instead since it is one of her favorites and not quite as scary as Stephen King. Being delinquent in my duties as reviewer, I have had the book for probably close to a year and so earlier this year I thought it would be a good encouragement to put it on my TBR reading challenge listing.
So this story is about a lady named Laura and I’m going to spoil it for you, time travel. Laura has a “guardian” who pops in and out of her life at important moments, saving her from dying over and over again from the moment she’s born right up until the end of the book pretty much. Laura goes through life not knowing that she’s really living in an altered timeline since Stefan (the guardian) keeps jumping across the time stream to fix things for her. Living in ignorance, Laura grows up and forms relationships and sustains significant losses in her life, all the while surviving as best she can. Eventually though, she comes face to face with Stefan and he asks her to help him save the world.
Overall this was not my favorite book. The book itself was good enough but it is not my usual style/genre of book and I had some trouble getting into it. There was a lot of complicated discussion on time travel and I (like Laura) got a massive headache trying to keep track of the paradoxes of people traveling through time. Also the main character lived through such heavy losses through her life, it was depressing. And poor Chris going through this experience as an 8 year old. I don’t think I found it too scary necessarily, but it was darker than I usually like and I had trouble connecting with Laura. I would probably try another book by Koontz in the future to see if it was just this plot I wasn’t a huge fan of. I want to thank my friend Sandy for recommending this book to me. I am trying hard to expand my horizons and try books that are outside of my comfort zone and this book definitely fit the bill! Thanks Sandy!

The bottom line: I don’t think I would encourage or discourage readers to try this book. It was a good book just not my style.

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2015 Book #55 – The Duke In My Bed by Amelia Grey

Posted in 2015, Book reviews, Book series, Historical Romance, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist, Reading Challenges, The Heirs' Club of Scoundrels by

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Title: The Duke In My Bed
Author: Amelia Grey
Date finished: 6/8/15
Genre: Historical romance
Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Publication Date: December 30, 2014
Pages in book: 306
Stand alone or series: #1 in The Heirs’ Club of Scoundrels series

Blurb from the cover:

HERE COMES THE GROOM
As a notorious member of the Heirs’ Club, Bray Drakestone can’t resist a challenge from one of his well-heeled colleagues-especially when it involves money and horses. But the friendly wager takes an unexpected and deadly turn. Bray is forced to agree to marry one of his challenger’s five sisters-sight unseen. Now gamblers all over London are placing bets on whether Bray will actually go through with it…
THERE GOES THE BRIDE
Miss Louisa Prim, the eldest sister, doesn’t care a whit what the reckless rogue at the Heirs’ Club promised her brother-she has no intention of marrying the future Duke of Drakestone. Bray, however, sees her rejection as another challenge. He bets that the fiery Miss Prim will not only agree to marry him, she will propose to him! With four sisters behind her, Louisa knows she can’t lose. But why does her opponent have to be a divinely handsome scoundrel? And so sweetly, irresistibly seductive…

My rating: 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2015 checklist under the “a book by a female author” check box since it was written by a woman. I saw this book at the Bristol library and I have read a couple books by her before, but really it was the cover that grabbed me (I love the purple flow-y dress) so I thought I would give it a try. And I have to say I picked this one up for reading at the perfect time, because after the devastation that was the Hunger Games series, I needed something more light and sweet. This book was exactly what I needed!
Louisa Prim is everything her name suggests: prim and proper, as she must be since she is the main caretaker for her four younger sisters, ranging in age from eighteen to six. Her mother passed away shortly after her youngest sister, Bonnie’s, birth and her father passed away only a couple years after her mother. Her brother inherited her father’s title and proceeded to discover all that London had to offer to a young and slightly wealthy man. It was because of this that her brother, Nathan, was in a curricle race once dark and foggy night, which that led to his untimely demise. The race was with a young heir to a dukedom, Brey Drakestone. Nathan coerced Bray with his dying breath to marry his oldest little sister and take care of his family. Bray protested at first, but with so many onlookers it was really quite difficult to deny this dying man’s last request. Cut forward to two years later, and Louisa thinks that she and her sisters are managing just fine without the scandalous Duke. So when he suddenly shows up and basically says “Well I guess I could marry you now” she wants nothing to do with him.
I very much liked this book. I liked Bray’s character a lot and I have to say it was different for the woman to be the one in the wrong for a change. Bray and Louisa’s relationship was interesting to watch evolve, and I liked Louisa’s big and boisterous family. There were some characters in the book that I would have liked to see get scolded a little more but I guess that wasn’t necessarily central to the plot. Overall was a good read though and relatively quick/easy.
The bottom line: I would recommend this book, I liked it a lot. I think this would make a great beach read! If you’re looking for something heavy and thought-provoking, I wouldn’t say this is the book for you though.

Link to author website
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