Book's I'm Dying to Read: February edition

Here are the books I'm looking forward to reading come February. It's a new year full of fabulous possibilities! 

 

My Secret Guide to Paris: A treasure hint around Paris!

Only Game: Loss and baseball - can Jack survive the loss of both his brother and not playing baseball?

I'll Meet You There: Actually, I've already read this one and loved it. Review coming soon, but you'll want to read it.

Soul Print: What if your soul wasn't your own?

Cipher: Techno thriller where someone discovers the power to hack into encryption systems - everyone wants a piece of him.

Inherit Midnight: An thriller about competition and solving family mysteries

Promposal: How and will you get asked to the prom?

Shadow Study: I love Yelena and can't wait to read more about this world.

Red Queen: A world divided by blood - but Mare someone finds herself holding a deadly power that could threaten everything

Double Fudge Brownie Murder: Hannah's in court for an accidental death, but becomes a murder suspect in the blink of an eye.

At the Drop of a Hat: A bride comes into the shop looking for a restoration piece - but becomes a suspect in murder instead.

 

First Time in Forever: The start of a new series (LOVED the O'Neil brothers series)

Earls Just Want to Have Fun: A new series from Shana Galen - where a thief learns to be a lady with potential deadly circumstances.

Kalahari: 5 teens become stranded in the desert and Corpus will do anything to stop them from discovering the truth about them.

Better Than Perfect: What happens when your perfect life is shattered?

Ruby Circle: I have to see how it all ends!

Story Thieves: Recommended on Twitter from Mundie Moms. What happens when a classmate climbs out of a library book?

Mark of a Thief: Magic and conspiracy set in Ancient Rome

Wicked Thing: Re-imagined Sleeping Beauty

Seeker: After training her entire life as a Seeker - everything changes the moment she takes her oath.

Keeper of the Lost Cities Blog Tour

Sophie's not normal. She doesn't belong in her family, she hears thoughts of everyone, and her photographic memory combined with her natural intelligence makes her stand out. She's a child prodigy (12) who will attending college next fall. During a field trip to a museum, she meets a boy. He's just like her -a Telepath. He's as surprised as she is, until he realizes that she's the girl he's been searching for.

He shares a bombshell with her, neither of them are human. Sophie's an elf, living in a human world. Fitz takes her to see their world. When Fitz shows up the next day, he's there to take her back to the city for testing. The powers that be don't believe that her abilities are possible. They're dumbfounded to witness them. They know one thing - she needs to learn control over her powers and to see how deep they reach.

Sophie must leave her world behind. She has just enough time to say goodbye to her family before she agrees to this upheaval. She must navigate through school, keeping her powers a secret from her new friends. She must learn to forget her previous life including her family. Most of all, Sophie's told not to think about humans. How can she help it when fires are burning brightly through cities. Sophie knows those fires aren't natural. How can she prove that they're magical if she's not allowed to ask questions? The answers she discovers bring up more questions. Is it possible that the fires are someone connected to her secret past?

My Thoughts: As I started reading this book. I was soon hooked, although the discovery of being an elf threw me for a loop too.  I quickly devoured this book. I loved uncovering Sophie's secrets along with her. I found her new world fascinating and liked finding out it's quirks. I liked the jumping. I enjoyed inventiveness of the lockers and how they opened.  I grew frustrated along with Sophie at the lack of answers and how the simplest question only seem to bring up more answers. It made me want to read faster to uncover the truth.
I enjoyed her interactions with her new friends, especially Dex. The moments between Sophie and her new foster parents were bittersweet, heart wrenching, and charming. I'm eagerly awaiting the next book in the series. Keeper of the Lost Cities is a magnificent fantasy debut novel that I know patrons at my library will gobble up as fast as I hand it to them.

Cover Thoughts: Great cover - it drew me in right away
Source: BEA

By: Shannon Messenger

Published by: Simon & Schuster

To Be Released on: October 2nd, 2012

Purchase from:

• Simon & Schuster 
• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Books-A-Million
• Indiebound
• iTunes
• The Book Depository

About the Author:  SHANNON MESSENGER graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts where she learned that she liked watching movies much better than making them. She also regularly eats cupcakes for breakfast, sleeps with a bright blue stuffed elephant named Ella, and occasionally gets caught talking to imaginary people. So it was only natural for her to write stories for children. Keeper of the Lost Cities is her first middle grade novel. Let the Sky Fall, a young adult novel, will follow in Spring 2013. She lives in Southern California with her husband and an embarrassing number of cats.

Follow Shannon: Blog | Twitter | Tumblr | Facebook | GoodReads | Pinterest

Contest Time! Enter to win book (which LOOKS amazing!!!)

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Dreamless Blog Tour

I'm lucky to be participating in the the DREAMLESS Blog Tour.

Josephine is chatting with us about writing her most challenging character.

I think the most challenging character for me to write about was Daphne.  She has a specific goal throughout the course of the books, but I didn’t want to give that goal away until the climax, so choosing what to reveal to the reader and what to withhold was one of the hardest aspects of developing the STARCROSSED storyline.  Stephen King once said that good books don’t reveal all their secrets at once.  But he never said when exactly to reveal them.

This is why I’m such a big fan of outlines.  Sometimes the difference between an exciting book and a slow one doesn’t have anything to do with the plot or the characters.  It’s in the timing of the reveals that decides how engrossing that story is.  Outlining is the best way to plan when to reveal secrets to the reader, and by spacing out the secrets, you can keep people turning pages, desperate to find out what happens next.

Daphne’s backstory and her motivation for all the terrible things she does to Helen drive the pace in STARCROSSED and her timeline decides the spacing of some major reveals.  I worked my butt off to make her as effective as possible.  She is a complicated character, but ultimately, it has been extremely rewarding for me to write her.

Follow Josephine: Website - Blog - Twitter - Facebook - Goodreads

Want More: Check out these links

• Browse inside Harper Teen
• Dreamless Playlist
• Dreamless e-book: 
• Harper Teen | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Google Ebooks | Kobo | iBookstore (At participating ebook store links, you can purchase Dreamless for $0.99)!!
• Follow the Dreamless Blog Tour; follow on Twitter under the #DreamlessDays and @Josieangelini

GRAND PRIZE CONTEST:

Josephine is hosting a blog tour giveaway, and this giveaway will end at the end of the tour. She's giving away a kindle with either the Starcrossed or Dreamless skin on it. In order for blog tour followers to enter, they do need to comment on each blog tour post (only once) as well as follow Josie on twitter. All that info is included in the giveaway itself. It is US only. 


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