ARC August – Check in #2 – 8/15

Posted in 2015, ARC August, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Two weeks down now, halfway through the month and I think I’m making good progress. I didn’t get as much done as I had planned this week but we all need a little down time once in a while! ARC August, which is hosted by Read.Sleep.Repeat is a reading challenge that centers around catching up on reading your ARC’s! And I definitely needed the encouragement this month since I have a long list of them to get done.

My progress:

1. Awake by Natasha Preston – Read & reviewed during Week 1
2. On The Way: A Working Woman’s Field Guide by Robin Lake – Read & reviewed during Week 1
3. The Guilty One by Sophie Littlefield – Read & reviewed during Week 1
4. Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner – Read & reviewed during Week 1
5. Imaginary Things by Andrea Lochen – Read & reviewed plus an author interview!
6. Steele Resolve by Kimberly Amato – Read & reviewed
7. Melting Steele by Kimberly Amato – Read & reviewed
8. 33 Cecils by Everett DeMorier – Read & reviewed
9. Friction by Sandra Brown – Up next after I finish the book for this month’s book discussion
10. We Never Asked For Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
11. A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan
12. Goddess of Suburbia by Stephanie Kepke

Books read August 8th-15th:

Imaginary Things by Andrea Lochen – 4.25 stars

Steele Resolve by Kimberly Amato – 2.75 stars

Melting Steele by Kimberly Amato – 2.5 stars

Thirty-Three Cecils by Everett De Morier – 3.5 stars

So that is what I have accomplished this week! Lots still to read, I didn’t have these on my original sign up post but I realized that I have 2 more ARC’s that I need to read for 9/1 and therefore will likely read in August. So that makes a total of 6 more books to read before 8/31. And with the Terryville Fair coming up at the end of the month, I lose a whole weekend to that. Lots of reading to do!! Will have to fit everything in.
Happy reading to you all!

16Aug2015

2015 Book #86 – Thirty-Three Cecils by Everett De Morier

Posted in 2015, ARC August, Book reviews, Fiction, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: Thirty-Three Cecils
Author: Everett De Morier
Date finished: 8/15/15
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Blydyn Square Books
Publication Date: 2015
Pages in book: 270
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Author/Publisher NOTE: I received this book for free from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

In 1992 – when Amy Fisher dominated every news channel – there lived two men. The first was a once prominent cartoonist who had a very public fall from grace. The other was an alcoholic who worked in a landfill. Both lived in in different parts of the country and led completely separate lives – until their paths crossed. You know their names. And for over twenty years, you thought you knew their story – until their journals were found and authenticated in 2014. And what we thought we knew – what the old news clips and the old stories wanted us to think – were all wrong.

My rating: 3.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for ARC August reading challenge, it is #8 on list from my sign up post. I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book is about a never solved mystery of who killed business partners Walker Roe and Riley Dutcher (also known as Dutch through most of the book). Walker Roe is very well known in Erie, Pennsylvania because he recently spent time in jail for bank fraud and for counterfeiting money. Walker is trying to put his life back together now that he isn’t in jail anymore and take care of his daughters. Dutch is a recovering alcoholic who has decided to travel through the United States since he’s never left his small town of Binghamton, New York. These two men were murdered and the case was never solved, mostly because the two men were the only witnesses to some strange events in the months leading up to their murders, events no one else could really describe because they weren’t there.
Fast forward to some amount of years later (I think it was twenty-ish but can’t remember exactly) and some college kids discover the long lost journals of Walker and Dutch. And from these journals we as the reader are finally able to answer some long-burning questions we would have in this fictional world including who is the murderer and how did Walker and Dutch end up becoming business partners in the first place? The journals tell the whole story of what happened to Walker and Dutch.
Overall I ended up really liking this book. This wasn’t something I normally would have picked up on my own but I’m really glad that I read it. The story line was really interesting and I was hooked in the story pretty much from the beginning. The only plot line point that bothered me a little bit about this book is why didn’t the police ever find the journals? I’m sure that the police would have searched Walker’s office at the liquor store to see if they could find anything leading them to a suspect, and they just never noticed the box with the journals in it? This didn’t bug me a ton but just a little annoying voice. There were some slow parts of the story for me but I was interested throughout the story so I was able to get through the slow points. I was pretty sad that Abby and Liz ended up losing their father because their relationship was pretty outstanding considering everything they had been through as a family. This was a good book though and I’m glad I got a chance to read it!

The bottom line: I ended up really enjoying this book. There were a few slow parts but the story line was great. I would recommend it.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

13Aug2015

2015 Book #85 – Melting Steele by Kimberly Amato

Posted in 2015, ARC August, Book reviews, Fiction, Mystery, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: Melting Steele
Author: Kimberly Amato
Date finished: 8/12/15
Genre: Fiction, mystery/suspense
Publisher: Little Crown Productions
Publication Date: May 19, 2015
Pages in book: 175
Stand alone or series: #2 in Jasmine Steele series
Where I got the book from: Author/Publisher NOTE: I received this book for free from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

We live in a digital age where everything you do, say and are, appears online. Nothing is ever really gone when you upload those photos, leave a bullying comment or surf mature websites. Detective Jasmine Steele is faced with a series of murders all tied to technology and the ever expanding Dark Web. Out of her element she needs to trust others in order to fully understand what she is faced with. In order to solve these cases, Steele has to put aside her obsession with those that killed her brother and tried to kill her. How can she do that when breadcrumbs all lead back to a powerful man who is connected to both prior cases? She has to find her focus before she loses herself to her own desire for revenge. Past obsessions can easily become crippling addictions.

My rating: 2.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for ARC August reading challenge, it is #7 on list from my sign up post. I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review.This book continues the story of Detective Jasmine Steele, picking up about 14 months after where the last book left off. Jazz has been in physical therapy and recovery pretty much this whole time (she got pretty beat up in the end of the first book) and physically she’s finally starting to feel close to normal again. Unfortunately she can’t seem to let get of the case that got away from her. She almost died at the end of the first book, was so close in fact that she had a conversation with her grandmother who told her to just let this whole thing go. But she becomes a woman obsessed with getting justice for her brother and sister-in-law. She begins to “fall down the rabbit hole” as she calls it. And really she’s just making it more difficult for herself; she so much wanted to get Frankie back in the first book and now she’s risking her relationship with her (again) by pushing her away and keeping her out. It’s so frustrating to see how much Frankie just wants to help or at least find Jazz help, but Jazz doesn’t want to talk to anyone. And Jazz really needs to talk to someone; she’s having very intense, awful nightmares where she can feel everything including being physically assaulted. She really needs to talk to a therapist about what the dreams mean and how to move past them and how to deal with the fact that she killed someone.
Anyways so in this book Jazz and her partner (Will) will have to solve a triple homicide case. It ends up being a much bigger case than just that and ends up involving a lot of different technology, including a program called the Dark Web which allows users to access basically an online black market. Jazz is able to connect some of the goings-on to Irving Garrison, the ultimate villain from the first book who she’s been obsessed with the past 14 months. And while all this is happening, Jazz and Frankie are also trying to decide whether or not they should adopt another child plus Frankie’s trying to deal with Jazz pushing her away again.
Overall I liked this book, it was a little less gory than the first book, which I appreciated, but I also thought there was a little less suspense and action in the plotline than the first book. I felt more like this book was an important piece of the story but was acting as a middle part to the story where we are building up to a grand finale, which I’m assuming is coming in the third book. I did find some of the transitions into new days or new scenes to be a bit short or choppy and sometimes I had trouble following the flow of information. Also some pieces of Jazz’s inner monologue seem almost forced or awkward. Other than that this was a good continuation of the series I think and I’m looking forward to finding out what happens in the third book in the series.

The bottom line: I thought this was a good mystery novel, it felt more like a filler book to keep the series going but those are important too. Good mystery, looking forward to Book #3.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

12Aug2015

2015 Book #84 – Steele Resolve by Kimberly Amato

Posted in 2015, ARC August, Book reviews, Fiction, Mystery, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Title: Steele Resolve
Author: Kimberly Amato
Date finished: 8/11/15
Genre: Fiction, mystery/suspense
Publisher: Little Crown Productions
Publication Date: March 3, 2015
Pages in book: 153
Stand alone or series: #1 in Jasmine Steele series
Where I got the book from: Author/Publisher NOTE: I received this book for free from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Jasmine Steele’s life was exactly where she had wanted it to be. She had the love of her life, a job as a detective and never gave up on her dream of writing the next great novel. It’s true what they say about life, it changes without warning, and Jasmine’s dreams slammed to a halt the minute her brother was killed. Between guilt, becoming the guardian of her nephew, hiding her grief – she lost her soulmate, her dreams and ultimately herself. Now Steele is now faced with a series of murders that pulls her back into her brother’s case and puts everyone around her in grave danger. Forced to face her demons, Steele must find out who the killer is before she loses someone else she loves. The killer doesn’t care who dies, especially if it keeps Steele quiet – permanently. Sometimes your worst enemy is yourself.

My rating: 2.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for ARC August reading challenge, it is #6 on list from my sign up post. I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of Detective Jasmine Steele, who is now the guardian of her seven year old nephew following the tragic accident that her brother and sister-in-law were killed in the year before. Jasmine is having trouble adjusting not only to handling her grief but also the new responsibilities that have been thrust upon her. In doing her best just to get through each day she has ended up pushing away the love of her life by putting up a wall between them, something she deeply regrets.
And while she tries to think of a way she could possibly fix the mess that her life is, things get even scarier. Someone calls and threatens both her and her nephew Chase. And then as she starts to dig deeper into the case, she realizes that her friends are also in danger, including the woman she is still in love with. Since Jazz is a detective with the police force, she knows better than anyone how to hunt down a killer. The problem though is what if the killer was hunting her first?
Overall I thought this was an fairly good book. I wouldn’t say it was my usual style, it was a little dark and bloody. The mystery story line was quite good though so if you like gory mysteries then I would definitely give this one a try. This to me just screams beach read, I always think reading scary books like this is less scary when you’re in the bright sun and surrounded by a calm ocean. Anyways, while for me the story line started out a tad slow, once we got into the whole hunt down the killer thing I was hooked. And while we deal with the immediate threat in this first book in the series, there is still a larger threat looming ahead that Jazz must face at some point in the future. I’m looking forward to reading the second book in the series (Melting Steele, up next!) and I peeked ahead and noticed that there is going to be a third book in the series as well.

The bottom line: I thought this was a good mystery novel, it kept my interest and was a fairly quick and easy read. This is what I consider a good beach read but I know that’s fairly subjective.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

10Aug2015

2015 Book #83 – Imaginary Things by Andrea Lochen

Posted in 2015, ARC August, Book reviews, Fiction, Magical realism, Reading Challenges, Women's fiction by rebeccabook17

Title: Imaginary Things
Author: Andrea Lochen
Date finished: 8/10/15
Genre: Fiction, Magical realism
Publisher: Astor + Blue Editions
Publication Date: April 27, 2015 (How funny, that’s my wedding anniversary)
Pages in book: 312
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Author/Publisher NOTE: I received this book for free from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Burned-out and completely broke, twenty-two-year-old single mother Anna Jennings moves to her grandparents’ rural Wisconsin home for the summer―her four-year-old, David, in tow. Returning to Salsburg reminds Anna of simpler times―fireflies, picnics, Neapolitan ice cream―long before she met her unstable ex and everything changed. But the sudden appearance of shadowy dinosaurs awakens Anna from this small-town spell, and forces her to believe she has either lost her mind or can somehow see her son’s active imagination. Frightened, Anna struggles to learn the rules of this bizarre phenomenon, but what she uncovers along the way is completely unexpected: revelations about what her son’s imaginary friends truly represent and hidden secrets about her own childhood.

My rating: 4.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for ARC August reading challenge, it is #5 on list from my sign up post. I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book is about Anna Jennings, a twenty-two year old woman and the mother of four year old David. You find out about David’s father in pieces throughout the story, but suffice it to say he has not been involved in David’s life. Anna has just lost her job in Milwaukee and is moving two hours away to her grandparent’s home in Salsburg until she can get back on her feet. Her grandparents have taken her in from time to time throughout her life, the last time being when she was pregnant with David. Anna’s mother, Kimberly, is a hard woman who never seemed to care much for Anna, so Anna is determined to never be that kind of mother to David. I thought it was truly touching how devoted she is to David as a parent. And though I’m not a parent myself, I’ve heard that many first time parents have numerous moments of self-doubt, whether they’re making the best decisions for their child or not. I could hear through Anna’s narration the thoughts that many first time parents must have. I thought her character was well developed and portrayed perfectly.
While staying with her grandparents, Anna begins to notice that David has some unusual play pals. The first time she almost sees them she thinks it is just a big dog, but when she begins to see them clearly she realizes that they are dinosaurs. That’s right, dinosaurs. And no one else can see them except her and David. She shouldn’t even really be able to see them because in actuality they’re just figments of David’s imagination. But they seem real as day to her, she can even feel and smell their hot breath while playing hide and seek one day. At first she’s worried about whether they’re going to hurt her son but she slowly starts to calm down when she realizes that the dinosaurs are protecting David. But what is it that David needs protecting from?
I don’t want to say too much else because I don’t want to give good plot points away. And the reason I’m not doing that is because everyone should go read it for themselves. Now. Go buy the book! This book was fantastic, I honestly just couldn’t put it down once I started reading it. I thought the idea of Anna being able to see David’s imaginary friends was just so creative and unlike anything I had ever read before. Also the plot of this book was just captivating. Every time I thought we were about to come up on a slow part of the book, something else would happen that kept me on my toes. I was literally on the edge of my seat for the last 50 pages at least. Great story line and great characters, I will definitely be reading Lochen’s previous book and anything in the future. Everyone go read this book!
And be sure to check out my other post from today, I got to chat a little with the author, Andrea Lochen, about this book and her other books.

The bottom line: I loved this book, I definitely recommend reading it! Especially if you are a women’s fiction or magical realism fan! Great read!

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

8Aug2015

ARC August – Check in #1 – 8/8

Posted in 2015, ARC August, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

Woo hoo! One week down! ARC August, which is hosted by Read.Sleep.Repeat is a reading challenge that centers around catching up on reading your ARC’s! And I definitely needed the encouragement this month since I have a long list of them to get done.

My progress:

1. Awake by Natasha Preston – Read & reviewed
2. On The Way: A Working Woman’s Field Guide by Robin Lake – Read & reviewed
3. The Guilty One by Sophie Littlefield – Read & reviewed
4. Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner – Read & reviewed
5. Imaginary Things by Andrea Lochen – Up next!
6. Steele Resolve by Kimberly Amato
7. Melting Steele by Kimberly Amato
8. 33 Cecils by Everett DeMorier
9. Friction by Sandra Brown
10. We Never Asked For Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
11. A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan
12. Goddess of Suburbia by Stephanie Kepke

Books read August 1st-7th:

Awake by Natasha Preston – 3.25 stars – Also stay tuned for an interview with this author soon to be posted (hopefully)

One the Way by Robin Lake – 4.0 stars

The Guilty One by Sophie Littlefield – 4.0 stars

Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner – 3.75 stars

So! That’s where I ended up this week. Make sure to check in early next week, I’ll be posting an author interview with Andrea Lochen, author of Imaginary Things. Happy reading!

8Aug2015

2015 Book #82 – Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner

Posted in 2015, ARC August, Book reviews, Fiction, Reading Challenges, Women's fiction by rebeccabook17

Title: Who Do You Love
Author: Jennifer Weiner
Date finished: 8/7/15
Genre: Fiction, Romance-ish, Women’s fiction
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: August 11, 2015
Pages in book: 400
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

An unforgettable story about true love, real life, and second chances…
Rachel Blum and Andy Landis are just eight years old when they meet one night in an ER waiting room. Born with a congenital heart defect, Rachel is a veteran of hospitals, and she’s intrigued by the boy who shows up alone with a broken arm. He tells her his name. She tells him a story. After Andy’s taken back to a doctor and Rachel’s sent back to her bed, they think they’ll never see each other again.
Rachel grows up in an affluent Florida suburb, the popular and protected daughter of two doting parents. Andy grows up poor in Philadelphia with a single mom and a rare talent for running.
Yet, over the next three decades, Andy and Rachel will meet again and again—linked by chance, history, and the memory of the first time they met, a night that changed the course of both of their lives.
A sweeping, warmhearted, and intimate tale, Who Do You Love is an extraordinary novel about the passage of time, the way people change and change each other, and how the measure of a life is who you love.

My rating: 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for ARC August reading challenge, it is #4 on list from my sign up post. I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book is about Rachel Blum, who meets a boy named Andy Landis when they’re coincidentally in the same hospital on the same night when they were young children. Rachel waited with Andy in the ER waiting room since his mom wasn’t with him and told him stories. Their lives seem to be intertwined since they end up encountering each other years later when they are both in high school.
What follows is an on and off relationship that spans across decades. A story of true love and second (or third or fourth) chances. Whenever Andy and Rachel meet up again it seems as if no time has passed and neither has ever stopped loving the other. Andy seems to make many mistakes along the way and I think that both he and Rachel have to grow quite a bit before their lives can permanently fit together. In the meantime, they both continue on their life path separately and have many important life experiences.
Overall I enjoyed this book. I thought the story line was sweet and touching. I thought the characters were wonderfully flawed and I really felt like I was given an opportunity to connect with them through the book. There were some plot developments that were interesting and obviously necessary to the story line but that I didn’t necessarily expect. I think the only thing I would be able to complain about is that I thought the ending was a little quick. I thought we were going to get to the reunion part where they fall back in love and what not and then bang it happened and two sentences later the story was over. I usually like a little wrap up (epilogue) even if its just like “oh it’s been a week and they’re still happy.” Other than that though I thought this was a good book.

The bottom line: I thought this was a touching, sweet story. I can’t say that it was a story that really grabbed me but it dig tug at my heart-strings. I would recommend it to readers who like women’s fiction.

Favorite Quotes:
“I realized, as he touched my cheek, then my hair, that I had never stopped hoping for this, not in all the years we’d been apart.”

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

2Aug2015

2015 Book #79 – Awake by Natasha Preston

Posted in 2015, ARC August, Book reviews, Reading Challenges, Young Adult by rebeccabook17

Title: Awake
Author: Natasha Preston
Date finished: 8/2/15
Genre: Young adult, thriller
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: August 4, 2015
Pages in book: 352
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Of course, the dress was white. This is what I’m supposed to die in, I thought. Not many people knew what their last outfit would be.
I pulled it over my head. It fit me perfectly. It had long, loose fitting sleeves, a modest neckline, and waves of material on the skirt. I hated it.
There were no shoes, and I was afraid I’d have to run through the forest barefoot but there weren’t a lot of options. Besides, I’d run barefoot over a bed of nails to get away.
“Scarlett, are you ready?” he called.
I looked in the mirror and took a deep breath. Time to fight for my life.
Scarlett Garner doesn’t remember anything before the age of four-until a car accident changes everything. She starts to remember pieces of a past that frighten her. A past her parents hid from her…and a secret that could get her killed.

My rating: 3.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for ARC August reading challenge, it is #1 on list from my sign up post. I have seen this book around a lot in the past couple months, seems like a lot of other blogs I follow have read this one as well. This book is about a girl named Scarlett who falls in love with a boy named Noah. This coming of age tale isn’t what you’d usually expect to find though, since Scarlett (unknowingly) has been on the run from a cult since she was a small child. I don’t want to say too much more about the plot since it will give away all the good twists and turns of the story but I will say that there is definitely enough going on in this story to keep you on your toes.

I thought that the story being told from two points of view gave this book an additional facet and really made the story more well-rounded. You see what is happening from both sides and as crazy as it sounds you can start to understand how a person who grew up in the cult would see the world and how they might process a human sacrifice. I mean if you’re raised to believe that the color blue is actually purple, then that’s what you believe right? Even if someone told you that no that’s actually blue you’re wrong, would you really be able to renounce what your parents have taught you for all those years?

Overall I did really liked this book, it was definitely different from the other young adult books I’ve read, mostly because I’ve never read anything involving a cult. I thought the author did a really great job of portraying just how sick and twisted some of the people in a cult can be, and how they end up sometimes blindly following their leader into dangerous territory. I almost felt like the ending was somewhat of a cliff-hanger though, I wonder if there is going to be a follow up story? Even if there isn’t I think I’m definitely going to read other books by this author!

The bottom line: I thought this was a really interesting book, I would recommend it. Some parts were a tiny bit slow but overall I think it was a good book.

Favorite Quotes:
“Sacrificing someone for your own sake was selfish, no matter how it was dressed up.”

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

24Jul2015

ARC August Reading Challenge Sign Up

Posted in 2015, ARC August, For the love of books, Reading Challenges by rebeccabook17

So while browsing through reading challenges lately, I came across a reading challenge for August, ARC August, which is hosted by Read.Sleep.Repeat. The reading challenge centers around catching up on reading your ARC’s, which I am definitely going to be doing during August! I have 7 Net Galley e-books to read during August as well as 2 books sent to me from authors, 2 books from a PR firm, and 1 book from a Publisher. So you can tell that August is shaping up to be a busy ARC reading month for me! And to help motivate me to stay on task, I am signing up for ARC August!

So here is my line-up of ARC’s I plan to read during August:

1. Awake by Natasha Preston
2. On The Way: A Working Woman’s Field Guide by Robin Lake
3. The Guilty One by Sophie Littlefield
4. Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner
5. Imaginary Things by Andrea Lochen
6. Steele Resolve by Kimberly Amato
7. Melting Steele by Kimberly Amato
8. 33 Cecils by Everett DeMorier
9. Friction by Sandra Brown
10. We Never Asked For Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
11. A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan
12. Goddess of Suburbia by Stephanie Kepke

Gosh seeing them all in a list like that is kind of overwhelming. I don’t know if I’ll actually be able to accomplish all of this but I sure as heck am going to try! I’ll be posting weekly updates of my progress so make sure to stay tuned!