Tag Archives: books

2016 Book #70 – The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction by

51PUBYCxdvLTitle: The Summer That Melted Everything
Author: Tiffany McDaniel
Date finished: 7/24/16
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: July 26, 2016
Pages in book: 320
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:

Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984: the year a heat wave scorched Breathed, Ohio. The year he became friends with the devil.
Sal seems to appear out of nowhere – a bruised and tattered thirteen-year-old boy claiming to be the devil himself answering an invitation. Fielding Bliss, the son of a local prosecutor, brings him home where he’s welcomed into the Bliss family, assuming he’s a runaway from a nearby farm town.
When word spreads that the devil has come to Breathed, not everyone is happy to welcome this self-proclaimed fallen angel. Murmurs follow him and tensions rise, along with the temperatures as an unbearable heat wave rolls into town right along with him. As strange accidents start to occur, riled by the feverish heat, some in the town start to believe that Sal is exactly who he claims to be. While the Bliss family wrestles with their own personal demons, a fanatic drives the town to the brink of a catastrophe that will change this sleepy Ohio backwater forever.

My rating:  4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. You can see the book trailer for this book here. Also I was lucky enough to get an interview with Tiffany and learn a little bit more about her life and her writing, which you can read here. This book tells the story of Fielding Bliss, whose life changes irrevocably during the summer of 1984. It is during that summer that Fielding meets and befriends Sal, the devil himself in the form of a thirteen year old boy. Over the course of that very hot summer, a number of tragic accidents happen and the townspeople are whisked into a frenzy, all looking for someone to blame. And isn’t it just lucky for them that a colored person recently came to town claiming to be the devil? During that summer of fear and hatred, the townspeople take on the form of an angry mob more than once, all losing their common sense when the “mob mentality” takes over.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. I found this to be a thought-provoking read with a creative plot-line, and the characters all had a great depth and complexity to them. I LOVED Sal’s character, he played a great devil and I loved how the reader gradually learned more and more about his background. Another character I loved was Autopsy (Fielding’s Dad). I thought his narratives about the law and his role in interpreting the law as a local prosecutor were very well written and really made the reader consider the age old ideals of good vs evil and innocent vs guilty. This book had a fantastical feeling to it at the start but I think that there was more to it than that. I think this book really makes the reader examine how people’s perception can affect what they will believe about you and how the public mob mentality inspires more and more fantastical ideas. There was also a number of surprise twists at the end of this book that I didn’t see coming and that really created a lot of tension at the end of the story. While there were some gruesome tragedies in this story, I thought that this was a great novel that is most definitely worth the read. This was McDaniel’s debut novel and I’m very excited to read more by her in the future.

The bottom line: This book was interesting and thought-provoking with what I thought was a very creative plot line. The characters were all complex and the story line was well-paced. I would definitely recommend.

Link to author website

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

2016 Book #69 – The Witness by Sandra Brown

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction, Thriller by

51Fjdq-jF4L._SX326_BO1,204,203,200_Title: The Witness
Author: Sandra Brown
Date finished: 7/12/16
Genre: Fiction, romantic suspense
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (Reprint)
Publication Date: Originally 1996, Reprint March 29, 2016
Pages in book: 418
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Target – purchased

Blurb from the cover:

Kendall Deaton pulls herself and her baby out of a wrecked car, and a mixture of courage and fear gets her to the top of a ravine, where she flags down help. But she doesn’t dare reveal her true identity to the authorities. Instead, she plans her immediate escape. Her perilous flight begins.
The best public defender in Prosper, South Carolina, Kendall had stumbled upon the town’s chilling secret, turning her marriage to one of the town’s most powerful men into a living hell. Now Kendall is a terrified mother trying to save her child’s life…a reluctant witness who knows too much about an insidious evil…and a woman surrounded by forces that will stop at nothing to protect what is “theirs.”

My rating:  4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: So if you read my blog you know that overall I am definitely a fan of Sandra Brown. I’m slowly trying to make my way through her backlist and since I’ve been so good at avoiding my ARC’s lately I decided to pick up. However, I have a tip for my future self: Never pick up a Sandra Brown book on a Sunday night unless you are (1) on vacation that week or (2) have somehow discovered in the future that sleep is no longer needed. Once I start reading a Sandra Brown book it is so hard for me to put it down. I was up until midnight last night finishing it. This book was about Kendall Deaton, a defense attorney in Prosper, South Carolina, who stumbles on a horrible crime out in the woods one night. In order to survive she runs away without leaving any trace, hoping to escape the clutches of a dangerous and deadly adversary. I don’t want to go too much into the plot line because of the twists and turns, I don’t want to give anything away! Even though some of the plot twists were somewhat predictable, they were all great and the story line kept me on my toes throughout. The only plot twist that didn’t really fit for me was the one at the end, I almost felt like it was added as an afterthought. It didn’t fit well for me with the rest of the story, but that’s just me!
Overall I really liked this book. It was definitely a page-turner, and my heart was pounding throughout the book. I must warn you readers, some parts of this book were downright gruesome, but it only adds to the evil character of the villains. I really liked this book overall and I would definitely recommend it, especially to Sandra Brown fans!!

The bottom line: This was a great read. The plot line definitely had my heart pounding and I was interested in the story right through to the end. There were a couple somewhat slow parts for me but overall was definitely a great book.

Link to author website

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

2016 Book #66 – The Seer’s Spread by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Posted in Beautiful Creatures, Book reviews, Book series, Young Adult by

510nuTTyxbL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_Title: The Seer’s Spread
Author: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Date finished: 7/3/16
Genre: Young adult
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: July 14, 2015
Pages in book: 40
Stand alone or series: Short story in the Beautiful Creatures series
Where I got the book from: Purchased from Amazon

Blurb from the cover:

Fate is a powerful thing…
Ethan Wate is still grieving the loss of his beloved Amma when he receives an unexpected gift–the old, yellow Whitman’s Sampler box that held Amma’s most closely guarded secrets. “One day I might let you have a look under that lid, Ethan Wate,” Amma used to say. “But today isn’t the day.”
Now it’s time for one of her greatest secrets to be revealed. In a long-lost letter, Amma tells Ethan the story of growing up as a young Seer with a remarkable gift for reading cards. But with a power that far-reaching comes responsibility, and Amma has been honoring her mission since before Ethan was born–to protect the Wate family at any cost. So when Lila Jane Evers enters Mitchell Wate’s life, bringing the whole Caster world with her, Amma turns to her cards. This time, it’s a the reading that will define the rest of her life–and Ethan’s.
In this second installment of Beautiful Creatures: The Untold Stories, #1 New York Times bestselling authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl bring you even deeper into the Caster world.

My rating:  3.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This short story tells the reader how Amma came to be working in Ethan’s household before he was even born. This was a nice addition to the overall Beautiful Creatures story line and added some depth to Amma’s back story. I liked it though it was short and didn’t add too many details. Short and quick read.

The bottom line: I liked this short story though it was very short. I would recommend if you’re a Beautiful Creatures series fan.

Link to author website

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

2016 Book #65 – Once Upon a Moonlit Night by Elizabeth Hoyt and BLOG TOUR

Posted in Blog tour, Book reviews, Book series, Historical Romance, Maiden Lane series by

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Title: Once Upon a Moonlit Night
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt
Date finished: 7/4/16
Genre: Historical romance
Publisher: Forever Yours
Publication Date: July 5, 2016
Stand alone or series: #10.5 in the Maiden Lane series
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:

From New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Hoyt comes a delightful Maiden Lane novella that begins once upon a moonlit night—and ends wickedly, wonderfully ever after . . .
Hippolyta Royle is running for her life. Pursued by hounds on a cold rainy night, the heiress flags down a passing carriage and throws herself at the mercy of the coach’s occupant. Whoever this handsome traveler may be, he is her only hope to escape a terrible fate. But should he agree to escort her to safety, he’s in for much more than he bargained for . . .
At first Matthew Mortimer doesn’t believe Hippolyta’s story, that she’s a fabulously wealthy heiress who’s been kidnapped. He assumes she’s a beggar, an actress, or worse. But once his new travel companion washes the mud from her surprisingly lovely face, and they share a breathtaking kiss, there is no turning back . . .

My rating:  3.75 stars out of a scale of 5

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My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of Hippolyta Royle, who we left in book ten of the series fleeing for her life after being kidnapped by the Duke of Montgomery. I’m glad that Hoyt wrote this short story to let the reader know what happened to Ms. Royle, I was deeply concerned for her well-being at the end of the last book. Hippolyta comes across a carriage while she is fleeing for her life, and the owner of said carriage, Matthew Mortimer, agrees to take her to the next town so that she can obtain passage in a mail coach to get back to London. Matthew doesn’t believe that Hippolyta is actually a wealthy heiress on the run from her kidnapper, more likely she is a down on her luck actress looking for some sympathy and a caretaker.
Overall I liked this short story a lot. I was very interested in finding out what had happened to Hippolyta after escaping from the Duke of Montgomery’s clutches. I’m glad that everything worked out for the best even though Montgomery is just a total jerk for kidnapping her in the first place. This was a sweet story and was a good addition to the series most definitely but overall it was a short story and wasn’t overly thrilling or detailed. Good story though and for anyone who likes the Maiden Lane series I would most definitely recommend.

The bottom line: I liked this novella and I thought it was a good addition to the Maiden Lane series. I appreciated learning about the fate of Ms. Royle since that was one of the open ends of book #10 in the series that I wished we had wrapped up. Nothing overly exciting but was a good addition to the series. I would recommend.

Link to author website

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

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About the Author:

Elizabeth Hoyt is the New York Times bestselling author of over seventeen lush historical romances including the Maiden Lane series.Publishers Weekly has called her writing “mesmerizing.” She also pens deliciously fun contemporary romances under the name Julia Harper. Elizabeth lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with three untrained dogs, a garden in constant need of weeding, and the long-suffering Mr. Hoyt.

Follow this link to enter to win a SIGNED copy of DUKE OF SIN: http://bit.ly/29dxlnQ

Social Media Links:
www.ElizabethHoyt.com
Twitter @elizabethhoyt
Facebook.com/ElizabethHoytBooks
Add Once Upon a Moonlit Night to your shelf on Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1S30uww

2016 Monthly Status Update: June

Posted in 2016, Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge 2016, Bout of Books 16, For the love of books, Penguin Random House: Challenge Your Shelf A-Z Challenge, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges by

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Well. June wasn’t as productive as I’d hoped. I had a sort of mini-crisis mid-way through the month and had to make some hard choices. I only tend to have a couple hours of free time each night and I have to choose how to spend my time each evening between exercising, reading, and sleeping. And most of the time above everything else I choose reading. Which leaves not much time for taking care of my health. So long story short I turned June into health month. Which also meant I didn’t get much reading done for June. And since I had like 20 books on my TBR list for June I most definitely fell off path but that’s ok. Hopefully July I’ll get a little more reading done and I can learn how to balance reading time and exercise time. Anyways, here’s my progress for June.

Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 7
# pages read this month: 2,110
# books read year-to-date: 64
# pages read year-to-date: 20,490

Favorite Books I Read:

The Wedding Sisters by Jamie Brenner – 4.5 stars
Beauty and the Highland Beast by Lecia Cornwall – 4.0 stars

Books I Didn’t Particularly Enjoy: 

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid – 2.5 stars – I just didn’t really get it, I’m hoping one day someone can explain to me what happened

Other Posts this month:

Didn’t get to post anything else this past month, will be working on that for July hopefully!

Status of 2016 Reading Challenges:

PopSugar Reading Challenge 2016 Checklist – 18/20 books read
Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge – 6/24 books read
Penguin Random House: Challenge Your Shelf A-Z Reading Challenge – 0/26 books read

July TBR list: 

Since I didn’t really make any progress on my June list so I’m pretty much going to work off of the list of books I didn’t read in June. And I’m not planning to read them in any particular order, I’m winging it for this month! I’m hoping to re-claim my reading spark in June and also find a way to balance my new exercise time with my reading time. Happy Fourth of July to everyone and Happy Reading!

2016 Book #63 – I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

Posted in 2016, Book reviews, Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge 2016, Fiction, Reading Challenges, Thriller by

51VLYVoj5+L._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_Title: I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Author: Iain Reid
Date finished: 6/21/16
Genre: Fiction, suspense, horror
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
Publication Date: June 14, 2016
Pages in book: 224
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:

I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It’s always there. Always.
Jake once said, “Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.”
And here’s what I’m thinking: I don’t want to be here.
In this smart, suspenseful, and intense literary thriller, debut novelist Iain Reid explores the depths of the human psyche, questioning consciousness, free will, the value of relationships, fear, and the limitations of solitude. Reminiscent of Jose Saramago’s early work, Michel Faber’s cult classic Under the Skin, and Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin, I’m Thinking of Ending Things is an edgy, haunting debut. Tense, gripping, and atmospheric, this novel pulls you in from the very first page…and never lets you go.

My rating:  2.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. Also, this book will count towards my Book Riot 2016 Read Harder reading challenge, marking off the “read a horror book” box since I think this book was pretty horror-ific. I spent a lot of time thinking to myself “don’t go into that abandoned (blank)!” which I feel like is how people normally react during regular horror movies. This book is interesting because we are not formally introduced to our narrator for the first few chapters, I think we learn more about who the narrator is at the end but I don’t know if I quite understand what happened at the end. Anyway, the book starts out with a girl going home with her boyfriend Jake to meet his parents. They have some conversations about philosophy and psychology on the way there, and we as the reader learn about the beginning of their relationship and that the girl is getting mysterious phone calls from her own phone number with cryptic voice mails. The girlfriend is also thinking about ending things with Jake. So once they get to Jake’s parents’ house, Jake starts acting really weird and his parents are especially odd. The tension starts to really build here and the reader starts to become concerned for this poor girl who will be caught unawares and who knows what will happen.
Overall I did enjoy this book somewhat up until the ending. The last chapter was confusing for me to say the least. I didn’t really understand what happened. I think it was just a “my brain didn’t follow what happened there” sort of thing though since other people who left reviews for the book on Amazon seemed to understand what transpired at the end. There was also just a lot of dialogue, which I’m sure was necessary for this particular story line but wasn’t something I normally enjoy in a book. So overall this one wasn’t a hit for me but there were things I liked about it. The author did a great job of building tension and really making the reader feel almost frightened. I kept looking over my shoulder and I was afraid to turn the lights off! Even though this book wasn’t one of my favorites, I would still recommend trying it. It is a short and fairly quick read and hopefully you’ll understand the ending better than me!

The bottom line: This was a confusing book for me, I still don’t really understand how the book ended. I think its worth a try, maybe someone can figure out what happened and explain it to me.

Link to author website

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

2016 Book #61 – The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction, Thriller by

61kbMRxYPpL._SX330_BO1,204,203,200_Title: The Girls in the Garden
Author: Lisa Jewell
Date finished: 6/11/16
Genre: Fiction, suspense
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: June 7, 2016
Pages in book: 320
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:

Imagine that you live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people’s houses. You’ve known your neighbors for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really?
On a midsummer night, as a festive neighborhood party is taking place, preteen Pip discovers her thirteen-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of a lush rose garden. What really happened to her? And who is responsible?
Dark secrets, a devastating mystery, and the games both children and adults play all swirl together in this gripping novel, packed with utterly believable characters and page-turning suspense. Fans of Liane Moriarty and Jojo Moyes will be captivated by The Girls in the Garden, the next unforgettable novel by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell.

My rating:  4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of a number of families living in a complex in Central London, with the complex surrounding a three acre communal park. No one has their own “back yard” all residents share one very large and well groomed garden for a back yard. Clare has just moved into a small apartment with her two daughters, Grace and Pip (whose real name is Lola). Clare is trying to hide from a recent traumatic situation with her husband, the girls’ father. She finds comfort at first in the friendship that comes with sharing the communal back yard. Her girls seem to be adapting well, especially Grace who is spending a lot of time with another set of sisters who live across the way. Once Grace is found unconscious and bloody though, Clare learns about what her daughter has really been doing when she’s not at home and that the other girls are not exactly as innocent as they seem.
Overall I really liked this book. The story line was interesting and I thought the author did a great job with how she made the story flow. The story begins with Pip finding her sister after Grace had been attacked. Then the story back tracks to the six months leading up to the attack and then continues past the attack to what happened after Grace was found. The story was also told from Pip’s point of view as well as Clare’s and Adele’s (the other set of sisters’ mother) with two more points of view added in the last few chapters. The ending didn’t turn out quite as I expected but I really liked the plot and it was a fairly quick, fast-paced read. The author really did a great job with creating tension in the story, the drama and tension was coming off the book in waves and we kept finding out more scandalous tidbits the more the characters delved into the mystery. I think this will be a great read for this summer, I would definitely recommend trying this one!

The bottom line: I found this book very interesting and at the same time slightly disturbing. Not disturbing in a bad way, more in a suspenseful way. The author creates a real world for the reader inside the communal garden and the separate points of view added a lot of different pieces to the story line. I would definitely recommend this one!

Link to author website

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

2016 Book #60 – The Wedding Sisters by Jamie Brenner

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction, Women's fiction by

41iS50dWuUL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_Title: The Wedding Sisters
Author: Jamie Brenner
Date finished: 6/9/16
Genre: Fiction, women’s fiction
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication Date: June 7, 2016
Pages in book: 317
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:

Meryl Becker is living a mother’s dream. The oldest of her three beautiful daughters, Meg, is engaged to a wonderful man from one of the country’s most prominent families. Of course, Meryl wants to give Meg the perfect wedding. Who wouldn’t? But when her two younger daughters, Amy and Jo, also become engaged to celebrated bachelors, Meryl has to admit that three weddings is more than she and her husband, Hugh, can realistically afford.
The solution? A triple wedding! At first, it’s a tough sell to the girls, and juggling three sets of future in-laws is a logistical nightmare. But when Hugh loses his teaching job, and Meryl’s aging mother suddenly moves in with them, a triple wedding is the only way to get all three sisters down the aisle. When the grand plan becomes public, the onslaught of media attention adds to Meryl’s mounting pressure. Suddenly, appearances are everything – and she will do whatever it takes to keep the wedding on track as money gets tight, her mother starts acting nutty, and her own thirty year marriage starts to unravel.
In the weeks leading up to the nuptials, secrets are revealed, passions ignite, and surprising revelations show Meryl and her daughters the true meaning of love, marriage and family. Jamie Brenner’s The Wedding Sisters invites readers to the most unpredictable wedding of the year.

My rating:  4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book tells the story of Meryl Becker, along with her husband and their three daughters: Meg, Amy, and Jo. Hugh has always had a keen interest in Louisa May Alcott, and had even written a book chronicling the life of the author’s mother, which was published when he first met Meryl. Meg Amy, and Jo are all grown up now, and through an interesting series of events all three sisters find themselves engaged within a couple months of each other. And when Hugh loses his job, Meryl realizes the only way they could possibly afford to marry off all three daughters within a year is to have all three weddings at the same time. And thus the idea of a triple wedding was born. And due to the fact that all three daughters are marrying what can only be described as “well-off” men, once the media gets wind of the triple wedding the press circus begins. As the wedding looms closer though, each sister starts to see cracks in their relationships that weren’t there before.
Overall I really  enjoyed this book so much. It was tension and drama filled, it was fast-paced and I just didn’t want to put it down. I thought the book really did a great job of examining multiple types of relationships: mother and daughter, husband and wife, sister and (other) sister, and also friendship and new love. It was interesting to hear the sisters three very different stories. And the ending was heart warming and inspiring. There was a lot going on in this book between all the characters’ separate dramas but the author combined the stories flawlessly and I thought the story line flowed very well. I would highly recommend this book, this is one of summer’s must reads!

The bottom line: I immensely enjoyed this book. It was tension and drama filled and kept me interested through the whole story. I also liked the view this book gave on a number of different relationship categories. Very interesting and exciting read, I think this is a great summer read! I would definitely recommend.

Link to author website

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

2016 Book #59 – The Cresswell Plot by Eliza Wass

Posted in 2016, Book reviews, Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge 2016, Reading Challenges, Young Adult by

61x4fmYyKmL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_Title: The Cresswell Plot
Author: Eliza Wass
Date finished: 6/5/16
Genre: Young adult
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Publication Date: June 7, 2016
Pages in book: 272
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:

The woods were insane in the dark, terrifying and magical at the same time. But best of all were the stars, which trumpeted their light into the misty dark.
Castella Cresswell and her five siblings-Hannan, Casper, Mortimer, Delvive, and Jerusalem- know what it’s like to be different. For years, their world has been confined to their ramshackle family home deep in the woods of upstate New York. They abide by the strict rule of God, whose messages come directly from their father.
Slowly, Castley and her siblings start to test the boundaries of the laws that bind them. But, at school, they’re still the freaks they’ve always been to the outside world. Marked by their plain clothing. Unexplained bruising. Utter isolation from their classmates. That is, until Castley is forced to partner with the totally irritating, totally normal George Gray, who offers her a glimpse of a life filled with freedom and choice.
Castley’s world rapidly expands beyond the woods she knows so well and the beliefs she once thought were the only truths. There is a future waiting for her if she can escape her father’s grasp, but Castley refuses to leave her siblings behind. Just as she begins to form a plan, her father makes a chilling announcement: the Cresswells will soon return to their home in heaven. With time running out on all of their lives, Castley must expose the depth of her father’s lies. The forest has buried the truth in darkness for far too long. Castley might be their last hope for salvation.

My rating:  3.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. Also, this book will count towards my Book Riot 2016 Read Harder reading challenge, marking off the “read a book about religion (fiction or nonfiction)” since this book features a family involved in a cult-ish doomsday religion. Castella Cresswell is one of the six children in the Cresswell family. Everyone in town gives the family a wide berth since they are so odd. The patriarch of the Cresswell family has started his own weird religion that is extremely strict and foretells that their family is the only pure one left and therefore they will be the only ones to get into heaven. The more the reader learns about the family though, the more we learn that the patriarch is really just a crazy abusive dad with a short temper. Cass is a junior in high school who makes a new friend in her drama class, and when she starts learning more about who she is as a person and that she wants to have more of what is a normal life, she begins to stand up to her father. Unfortunately, circumstances are not great for the Cresswell family since the mother and father both don’t work, and the father counts on God to provide for the family. When things become bleak, the father decides that it is time for the family to take their rightful place in God’s kingdom, and yes that is as sinister as it sounds.
Overall I thought this was a good idea for a book and I liked the book. I thought that the story line could have been organized a tad bit better and the characters could have been a little better developed but the book itself was dark and thrilling and also a little sad. There was a wealth of emotions in the writing and as a reader I was looking to empathize more with the main character but I couldn’t connect with her enough to feel a lot of emotions towards her. I still think it was an interesting idea for a book though and I would recommend reading it. Although I would add a warning that if you get scared or freaked out easily this may not be something to add to your to read list.

The bottom line: I liked the idea behind this book but I thought it could have been developed a little better. It was a good story but I had trouble connecting with some of the characters. I would still definitely recommend it with a forewarning that it is a little horror-ish.

Link to author website

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

2016 Book #58 – Frayed by Kara Terzis

Posted in 2016, Book reviews, Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge 2016, Reading Challenges, Young Adult by

51zDAx+FX2L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_Title: Frayed
Author: Kara Terzis
Date finished: 6/2/16
Genre: Young adult
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: June 7, 2016
Pages in book: 304
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:

Dear Kesley,
My therapist tells me I should write you a letter. Like flushing all my thoughts and feelings out of my system and onto paper. I tell her it’s a stupid idea.
But here I am, writing a letter to a dead girl. Where do I start? Where did our story begin? From the moment you were born…or died?
I’ll start with the moment I found out the truth about you. Your lies and my pain. Because it always begins and ends with you.
And that end began when Rafe Lawrence came back to town…
Ava Hale will do anything to find her sister’s killer…although she’ll wish she hadn’t. Because the harder Ava looks, the more secrets she uncovers about Kesley, and the more she begins to think that the girl she called sister was a liar. A sneak. A stranger.
And Kesley’s murderer could be much closer than she thought…
A debut novel from Wattpad award-winner Kara Terzis, Frayed is a psychological whodunit that will keep you guessing!

My rating:  4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. Also, this book will count towards my Book Riot 2016 Read Harder reading challenge, marking off the “read a book with a main character that has a mental illness.” I’m not going to say who because you should read it to find out but one of the main characters in this book is suffering from a mental illness. This book tells the story of Ava Hale, beginning about a month after her sister dies while she tries to figure out who murdered Kelsey. The police have no leads and as Ava starts to delve a little deeper into Kelsey’s life before her death, she discovers that she didn’t know her sister as well as she thought. Kelsey managed to hide a lot of things from her little sister Ava, including the fact that she tried to buy a gun to protect herself. But what exactly was Kelsey scared of? And why didn’t she think she could tell Ava about whatever was scaring her?
Overall I really liked this book. It was intriguing and kept me hooked right up until the end. I honestly didn’t see the ending coming, it was one of those great shocker endings. The ending was a little sad for me because I just felt so bad for Ava. The reader learns a lot about Ava through the book and it seemed like at every turn there was someone else betraying Ava’s trust. It was very sad. Other than that though I liked the book a lot! I don’t want to give too much away with the review so I would tell everyone to go read it for yourselves and find out!

The bottom line: I really liked this book, it was definitely a heart-pounding thriller and it kept me guessing right up until the very end. I just felt so bad for Ava, it seemed like there wasn’t anyone who cared about her enough to have her back and it saddened me a little. Other than that, this was a great thriller and I would definitely recommend it!

Link to author website

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