Happy New Years!

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year's Eve!! See you in the new year!

Some of my favorite reads in 2010

I've seen some of the posts around but I have a hard time determining which of the books I've read was the best, so I will just be listing a few of my favorites:

I just loved this book. It was a heart wrenching, tender, love story.

I loved this series premiere and can't wait to learn more back story.


I loved this fun Steampunk adventure and I even like Behemoth just as much.

A great ending to an epic story!

OMG I loved this book and can't wait for book 2!


I just love a great thriller/mystery book and this fit the bill just nicely!

A unique take on the vampire genre. I look forward to more!
A love that transcends time. Who doesn't love a great love story?

A fantastic foray into the magical world of fantasy. Full of Irish Folklore and I can't wait for more!

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading and it asks us to...

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's my teaser this week:

Lucy still had that creepy feeling someone was staring at her. She glanced over her shoulder, but no one remotely suspicious was even there.

Love Me To Death - Allison Brennan pg. 29

What Are You Reading

It's Monday What are you reading this week? Hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through A World of Books. This is a meme to list the books completed last week, the books currently being read, and the books to be finished this week.

Books I finished in the last week:

The Snow Globe - Sheila Roberts

Books I am reading this week:

Wither - Lauren DeStefano
Soulless - Gail Carriger

Books to finish this week:

Soulless - Gail Carriger

Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday!!

The Snow Globe - A Review

The Snow Globe - Sheila Roberts (publisher)

Product Details

• Pub. Date: October 2010
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Format: Hardcover , 176pp
• Sales Rank: 13,070

• ISBN-13: 9780312594480
• ISBN: 0312594488

Synopsis

Discover an unforgettable holiday treasure in Sheila Roberts’ heartwarming tale of love and laughter, magic and miracles, friendship and coming home…

On a blustery afternoon, Kylie Gray wanders into an antique shop and buys an enchanting snow globe. “There’s a story behind that snow globe,” the antique dealer tells her. The original owner, he explains, was a German toymaker who lost his wife and son right before Christmas. When the grieving widower received the handcrafted snow globe as a Christmas gift, he saw the image of a beautiful woman beneath the glass—a woman who would come into his life, mend his broken heart and bring him back to the world of the living. For years, the snow globe has passed from generation to generation, somehow always landing in the hands of a person in special need of a Christmas miracle.

Kiley could use a miracle herself. This year, all she wants for Christmas is someone to love. A hopeful shake leads her on an adventure that makes a believer out of her. When Kylie shares the story of the snow globe with her best friends—two women with problems of their own—they don’t believe it. But they’re about to discover that at Christmastime, sometimes the impossible becomes possible and miracles really do come true.

My Thoughts:

This is the perfect book to cuddle up on the couch with a blanket and a hot cup of hot cocoa. It's a quick, short read full of heartwarming, goodness that leaves you feeling all warm and fuzzy when it's over. I have to say I really enjoyed the magic of the snow globe and I don't think I'll ever look at them the same again.

If you're looking for a quick, light holiday read to fit in between cooking, wrapping, or to just end a busy day, this would be a great choice.

Author's Website: Sheila Roberts

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading and it asks us to...

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's my teaser this week:

Actually, Kiley was a big believer, period. She'd been sure Santa was real until she was ten and even after walking up on Christmas Eve to discover her father hanging her filled stocking on the mantel, she kept pretending for another two years.

The Snow Globe - Sheila Roberts pg 1.

What Are You Reading

It's Monday What are you reading this week? Hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through A World of Books. This is a meme to list the books completed last week, the books currently being read, and the books to be finished this week.

Books I finished in the last two weeks:

Matched - Ally Condie
Goodnight Tweetheart - Teresa Medeiros
Choker - Elizabeth Woods

Books I am reading this week:

Wither - Lauren DeStefano
Soulless - Gail Carriger

Books to finish this week:

Soulless - Gail Carriger

Choker - A Review

Choker - Elizabeth Woods (Simon & Schuster Egalley)

Product Details

• Pub. Date: January 2011
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Format: Hardcover , 240pp
• Age Range: Young Adult

• ISBN-13: 9781442412330
• ISBN: 144241233X

Synopsis (publisher's website)

Zoe and Cara were as close as friends could be—until Zoe moved away. Miserable without Zoe, Cara grew into an unhappy sixteen-year-old, tormented by the popular girls and nursing a hopeless crush. Then one day Cara returns home from a miserable day at school to find Zoe sitting on her bed. Shocked and delighted, Cara agrees to hide Zoe from troubles at home and the two resume their friendship as though no time has passed. Zoe even helps Cara get up the courage to stand up for herself and talk to her crush. But when one of the popular girls winds up dead, Cara begins to suspect that Zoe is responsible, and her questions only feed Zoe’s anger. As Cara searches for answers, she is forced to confront a deadly truth….

My Thoughts:

If you want a book that will keep you reading, this is the one. It only took a few pages to draw me completely into this story. Elizabeth worked some great magic with this book. Always keeping the reader just on the edge of the truth. I spent the majority of the book trying to decide which way the story was going to go.

Cara struck me as a lonely person and Zoe instantly struck me as unbalanced. Truth be told Zoe creeped me out from the get go. Something instantly seemed off about her. I loved seeing Cara start to come out of her shell but at the same time, it was hard to decipher what was real and what wasn't, or was it all real? That was the gem of this book. I was never 100% positive either way until the end of the book. I loved that!

This really is a book about Cara. The other characters all had their parts and they played them well. Ethan was a great character, everything a high school crush should be. Here parents baffled me a bit but we got to see them through Cara's eyes and I think we saw how Cara either saw or believed them to be . But in the end, this book is all about Cara and Zoe.

In the end, I loved this book. I love a good mystery, and there was mystery to be had. I loved that I found it slightly disturbing, and it had some definitely disturbing scenarios. Most of all I loved that I was kept in suspense, never quite knowing if I was on solid ground or not. I most certainly recommend this book.

Goodnight Tweetheart - Blog Tour December 16, 2010

Goodnight Tweetheart - Teresa Medeiros (Blog Tour for Gallery Books)

Product Details

• Pub. Date: December 2010
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
• Format: Paperback , 222pp
• Sales Rank: 42,026

• ISBN-13: 9781439188156
• ISBN: 1439188157

Synopsis:

New York Times bestselling author Teresa Medeiros absolutely dazzles in this quick-witted, laugh-out-loud funny, and highly moving love story that will set readers’ hearts atwitter.

Abigail Donovan has a lot of stuff she should be doing. Namely writing her next novel. A bestselling author who is still recovering from a near Pulitzer Prize win and the heady success that follows Oprah’s stamp of approval, she is stuck at Chapter Five and losing confidence daily. But when her publicist signs her up for a Twitter account, she’s intrigued. What’s all the fuss?

Taken under the wing of one of her Twitter followers, “MarkBaynard"—a quick witted, quick-typing professor on sabbatical—Abby finds it easy to put words out into the world 140 characters at a time. And once she gets a handle on tweets, retweets, direct messages, hashtags, and trends, she starts to feel unblocked in writing and in life. After all, why should she be spending hours in her apartment staring at her TweetDeck and fretting about her stalled career when Mark is out there traveling the world and living?

Or is he?

Told almost entirely in tweets and DMs, Goodnight Tweetheart is a truly modern take on a classic tale of love and loss—a Griffin and Sabine for the Twitter generation.

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this book. It's quirky, romantic, fun, heartfelt, tender, full of great one liners. It's a great book to read when you need something light yet full of depth as well. It could easily be read in a sitting given enough time.

The twitter conversations made me laugh out loud at times and made my heart break at other times. It also brings to mind just how much of a digital world we've become. Laptops, PCs, smart phones, twitter, Facebook, Myspace. So many ways to keep in touch with people and yet sometimes it seems as if you're a world apart still. Funny how that works.

I liked Abby's character. I think I identified with her personality. Her fears. Her worries. Mark was just as easily like able. He's charming and mysterious all at once. And I can certainly say I did not see the ending of the book coming.

In short I loved this book. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting but I was not let down regardless.

Author's Website: Teresa Medeiros

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading and it asks us to...

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's my teaser this week:

Abby_Donovan: Do you think obsessive tweeting counts as a hobby or an addiction?

MarkBaynard: A hobby. That's what I used to tell myself about THE LEGEND OF ZELDA after I'd been playing for 37 hours without food or sleep.

Goodnight Tweetheart - Teresa Medeiros pg. 95

Matched - A Review

Matched - Ally Condie (Library Thing)

Product Details

• Pub. Date: November 2010
• Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
• Format: Hardcover , 384pp
• Sales Rank: 146
• Age Range: Young Adult

• ISBN-13: 9780525423645
• ISBN: 0525423648

Synopsis

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

My Thoughts:

Can you imagine being told who you would marry, how you would live, what job you would have and just about everything else is decided for you as well? Being censored from most everything in the world. Movies, music, poems, books all gone except for a very few? A life with no free will whatsoever? This is the life Cassia lives and she accepts it until that fateful night she looks at her matching microchip and see's two boys.

This book brought about many feelings for me. Sadness and joy being two of them. I felt such a sadness for the characters in this book. I wondered if they even knew what real happiness really was. Everyone is the same. Day to day life it the same, nothing unexpected until the unexpected happens and Cassia's life is slowly brought to life. Watching Cassia go from drone to learning to live and love was beautiful. The sadness followed me through out the book but I couldn't stop reading because with all the sadness one thing shined through, hope.

Ally references a well known Dylan Thomas poem, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, several times in this book and it brought back just how much I love this poem. How it seems sad but yet no where near sad, all at the same time. How it teaches you question things, life, etc. Not to just go by what they tell you to. But to grab life by the horns and live it!

I have to say I loved this book and if you are a fan of Dystopian fiction, I highly recommend it!

Author's Website: Ally Condie

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading and it asks us to...

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's my teaser this week:

"No one knows I can do this," Ky says. "Now I have a secret of yours and you have one of mine."

Matched - Ally Condie pg 170 (this is from an arc, subject to change)

Mailbox Monday & What Are You Reading

This is a weekly meme hosted by Lady Q at Let Them Read Books. Join the fun and post what you got in your mailbox last week!

I got a few more this week









1) Wither - Lauren DeStefano
2) Bloodring - Faith Hunter
3) Seraphs - Faith Hunter










It's Monday What are you reading this week? Hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through A World of Books. This is a meme to list the books completed last week, the books currently being read, and the books to be finished this week.

Books I finished last week:

The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball - Risa Green

Books I am reading this week:

Matched - Ally Condie
Wither - Lauren DeStefano
Three Seconds - Roslund and Hellstrom

Books to finish this week:

Matched - Ally Condie

The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball - A Review

The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball - Risa Green (publisher)

Synopsis:

In a world where nothing is certain, a little magic couldn't hurt...right?

When Erin Channing's favorite aunt dies, Erin is bequeathed a pink crystal ball and a set of weird instructions. Granted, Aunt Kiki (aka Aunt Kooky) always lived "outside the box." But now Erin and her two best friends are convinced that the pink crystal ball holds the key to their future-or at least the key to getting dates...

Consider Your Fate to Be Sealed . . .

• Absolute knowledge is not unlimited; let the planets be your guide to the number.
• There are sixteen ways to die, but four of them you will never see.
• The future belongs to you alone. Other voices will be disappointed.
• One rotation is as far as you can see. Only uncertainty lies beyond.

My Thoughts:

This is a fun book of learning to let go and just live life. To think outside of the box. Allowing yourself to go beyond your normal sense of security and just try something new. Crowd surf, mosh in a mosh pit, sneak on private property and soak in a forgotten hot spring. But the bottom line: Just live life to the fullest.

I loved the message this book gives out to its readers. The characters were fun and some were kinda creepy but I can honestly say I've know a character like just about every character in the book.

If you're looking for a fun, easy read with no hard thinking needed, this is your book. It's great and I highly recommend it.

Author's Website: Risa Green

Upcoming CSN Review

I've been contacted to review another great item from CSN stores. They have so many great items, that it's hard to choose. Just look at these great Adjustable Bar Stools. Aren't they fantastic?

I'm sure whatever I decide will be fantastic. So stay tuned for an upcoming review!