4.5 Stars
What does it take to rise from life’s depths, swim against the current, and breathe?
Weighted
down by the loss of her parents, Blythe McGuire struggles to keep her
head above water as she trudges through her last year at Matthews
College. Then a chance meeting sends Blythe crashing into something she
doesn’t expect—an undeniable attraction to a dark-haired senior named
Chris Shepherd, whose past may be even more complicated than her own. As
their relationship deepens, Chris pulls Blythe out of the stupor she’s
been in since the night a fire took half her family. She begins to heal,
and even, haltingly, to love this guy who helps her find new paths to
pleasure and self-discovery. But as Blythe moves into calmer waters, she
realizes Chris is the one still strangled by his family’s traumatic
history. As dark currents threaten to pull him under, Blythe may be the
only person who can keep him from drowning.
This book is intended for mature audiences due to strong language and sexual content
Blythe remembers the days where she was carefree, but her life was all but destroyed the night her family was ripped apart. Trauma has stunted her memories, but the still images that play in her mind will haunt her forever. Four years on, and Blythe lives within her cocoon. She is now a friendless, social misfit who's only reprieve is through alcohol. She has never had a boyfriend, the thought of being touched intimately by anyone terrifies her. After yet another drunk phone call to her distant brother, she decides it's time to change her life... Just in time to run into Sabin.
The flamboyant, over dramatic womanising, community theater actor is dramatic, direct and bounces into her life, making her feel alive again. Giving Blythe the confidence to venture out and seek new experiences... Like the handsome, stone skipper Chris. Finding an instant, inexplicable connection with the complete stranger, who turns out to be Sabin's brother.
Along with Estelle and Chris, Blythe finds an easy friendship with the Shepherd siblings, especially Chris. For the first time since her world shattered, Blythe finally feels that perhaps the future isn't so bleak after all. While she falls into the comfortable routine of being inducted into the Shepherd clan, she starts to release that she isn't the only lost and broken soul. The Sheppard family are holding into a past that even Blythe can't comprehend. As her friendship with Chris blooms, Blythe begins to heal...
But is Chris beyond repair?
Left Drowning is by far one of the top contemporary novels of the year, comparable to Colleen Hoover's Hopeless. It's steamy, laugh out loud funny and emotional. It will tear you apart, and leave you an emotional mess. Jessica Park creates brilliant and poignant characters that will embed themselves under your skin, and you'll feel every low and high along with their story. The sexual content is sizzling!
Sabin is phenomenal, he is the new Celeste (from Jessica's previous release, Flat Out Love). I absolutely fell in love with his character and Sabin's struggle with what the Shepherd siblings had to endure. It was simply brilliant.
Left Drowning
Written By Jessica Park
Expected Publication 16 / 07 / 2013
Thank you to the phenomenal Jessica Park,
for sharing the Shepherd story with me before
sharing it with the world. I adored it.
Mila 2.0 is the first book in an electrifying sci-fi thriller series about a teenage girl who discovers that she is an experiment in artificial intelligence.
Mila was never meant to learn the truth about her identity. She was a girl living with her mother in a small Minnesota town. She was supposed to forget her past—that she was built in a secret computer science lab and programmed to do things real people would never do.
Now she has no choice but to run—from the dangerous operatives who want her terminated because she knows too much and from a mysterious group that wants to capture her alive and unlock her advanced technology. However, what Mila’s becoming is beyond anyone’s imagination, including her own, and it just might save her life.
Mila isn't your average sixteen year old girl. In fact, far from it. After moving to the lazy town of Clearwater after her father's death, memories of the traumatic experience have been erased, another sign of her grief and loss, or so she's told. Mila starts high school, with the memory of previously being home schooled, and attempts to make friends. The vindictive, mean spirited girls she can do without, but with one easily excited and enthusiastic friend, life in Clearwater may not be all that bad after all... Until new kid Hunter arrives.
Tall and brooding, the handsome out of state boy takes an interest in Mila, even if he is off limits. When your only friend lays claim to the new kid, Mila has every intention of stepping aside... Until she turns into one of the vindictive girls. After what is seen to be a deliberate accident that could have killed Mila, she's strangely... Fine. Unhurt even. Apart from the deep gash to her arm, but when instead of blood, Mila sees a series of wires and metal.
Mila is an android. A weapon created by the government, an artificial life form, a machine. So how does she remember a deceased father, how can she see and hear far beyond average capabilities, how can she feel so much for hunter, when she isn't a living, breathing person? And who is the woman, who is the only mother she's ever known?
It isn't until she is deemed as stolen property, that she needs to run before her creator forces her back to the secret government facility. They will do anything to have her in their possession again, to keep Mila out of the hands of rivals, looking to sell government secrets on the black market. Evading capture, Hunter on her mind, the threat of termination and trying to keep her mother safe, it isn't until after she meets Lucas, when she starts to believe that she's more than the monster, she believes herself to be.
Mila 2.0 was slow to begin, telling the story of what seemed to be a regular teenage girl, coping with loss and grief, while finding her feet in a new town. Once the storyline starts unraveling the secret of who Mila really is, the reader is thrown into the heart pounding action.
It was brilliant. Mila's inner struggle between being an android and holding onto her humanity, is comparable to teens needing a sense of identity. I didn't understand the significance of Hunter, apart from being Mila's love interest, but I'm assuming that it will come to light in the next in the series. I was surprised that this was the debut novel from Debra Driza, not only was it well written, but it was unique, and nowadays that is a rare commodity in young adult novels.
Mila 2.0
(Mila 2.0: Book One) Written By Debra Driza
Published 12 / 03 / 2013
480 Pages
480 Pages
After rescuing her
father and younger sister, Adele is forced to leave her family and
Tristan behind to find her mother in the cruel and dangerous realm of
the star dwellers.
Amidst blossoming feelings for Adele,
Tristan must cast his feelings aside and let her find her own way
amongst the star dwellers, while he accompanies Adele's father to meet
with the leaders of the moon dwellers and decide the fate of the
Tri-Realms.
Will Adele be able to rescue her mother and make it
back to the Moon Realm before the President and the sun dweller soldiers
destroy her family?
Can Tristan convince the moon dweller puppets of the error of their ways?
Was Adele's lost kiss with Tristan her one and only chance at love?
In her world there's only one rule: Someone must die
Adele and Tawni are now on their way to the Star realm, where it seems the civil violence us being bred. The Star realm is continuing it's annihilation of the Moon realm, considering the city is drowning in extreme poverty, the arsenal seems to be in abundance. The tunnels are the only option to reach the Star realm and the two forge on with enough strength and determination to come through unscathed... Almost.
Tristan has been recruited by The Resistance and his role is simple, convince members of The Resistance and leaders of the Moon realm chapters to cease the beckoning civil war and join forces. His father, the President, hopes to unravel his existsnce with revelations of his own, both cruel and horrific... Tristan isn't the only one who wants to end his fathers life.
Adele can't quite believe her eyes when she wakes up in the Star realm. Not only is her mother alive, but she isn't the polite and softly spoken mother that Adele had always thought she was. Adele's father been telling her that she takes after her mother, suddenly makes sense. How had she never known? But something is amiss at the camp that Adele and Tawni are calling a temporary home, all signs point to a well funded mission that doesn't seem possible.
Adele knows that reuniting her family is the key to survival, survival of the realms, survival of her crumbling world and the survival of the revolution to unite the realms once more.
The Dwellers series is incredible, there is just no other way to describe it. Beautifully written, it's fast paced with a unique storyline. Gritty and dirty at times, the series has the makings of a cult following.
My only complaint is that it ended in a cliffhanger that will leave you trying to guess what's coming. A slightly awkward set up referring to the next book, when the main characters are sent on an important mission. The execution was a little too predictable and casual. Regardless, this is a brilliant series.
The Star Dwellers
(The Dwellers: Book Two)
Written By David Estes
Published: 30 / 09 / 2013
368 Pages
368 Pages
Written By Moira Young
Dystopian, Post Apocalyptic
Dystopian, Post Apocalyptic
Nothing is certain and no one is safe in the second book in the highly praised Dust Lands trilogy.
It seemed so simple. Defeat the Tonton, rescue her kidnapped brother, Lugh, and then order would be restored to Saba’s world. Simplicity, however, has proved to be elusive. Now, Saba and her family travel west, headed for a better life and a longed-for reunion with Jack. But the fight for Lugh’s freedom has unleashed a new power in the dust lands, and a formidable new enemy is on the rise.
What is the truth about Jack? And how far will Saba go to get what she wants? In this much anticipated follow up to the riveting Blood Red Road, a fierce heroine finds herself at the crossroads of danger and destiny, betrayal and passion.
Written By G J Walker - Smith
Contemporary, Romance
Published February 20th 2013
370 Pages
Add to Goodreads
★★★★☆
For Charli Blake, being seventeen is a tough gig.
She's been branded a troublemaker, her reputation is in tatters and she's stuck in Pipers Cove, a speck of a town on the coast of Tasmania.
Thankfully, it's temporary. Her lifelong dream of travelling the world is just months away from becoming reality. All she has to do is ride out the last few months of high school, which is easier said than done thanks to a trio of mean girls known as The Beautifuls.
When Adam Décarie arrives in town, all the way from New York, life takes an unexpected turn. His arrival sets off a chain of events that alters her life forever, convincing her of one thing. Fate brought him to her.
Saving Wishes is the story of a girl who doesn't quite fit the life she's living, and the boy who helps her realise why.
Charlotte is a small town girl with big dreams. She lives in a tiny Tasmanian coastal town with her brother Alex. Ever since she can remember, she's dreamed of escaping and finding her perfect place somewhere else in the world, chasing the adventure that life brings. Then Adam floats into town.
The French American cousin of Charli's French teacher, he left his home in New York in a whim, to chase the postcard scene that arrived in his mailbox from his cousin months ago. He believes fate brought him to the tiny town, how right he is. Charli took the photograph for the postcard that has brought him to her.
Charli and Adam are polar opposites, she is free spirited and wild with a mischievous streak. Adam is from a wealthy family, due to start Law school upon returning to New York and lives for the city life.
Suddenly a few months together just isn't enough. Facing what could be the toughest decision if her life, does she sacrifice her dreams of travel and following the sun to stay with Adam, or walk away from the one who could possibly be the love of her life.
Kelly's Thoughts
I adored Saving Wishes. It was intelligent, witty and emotional. I have a love affair with Australian young adult novels and writers, and this one is exceptional. A coming of age story about your first love, your future and learning to stand on your own two feet. I loved Charlie, she's a brilliant character and I can't wait to start Second Hearts, the next in the series.
Book synopsis not yet released.
As Lora's tale continues in The Deepest Night, she is grieving for Jesse and has never felt so alone. The only one she has ever truly loved, and he was taken away from her so cruelly. After being injured, Lora is at Iverson, recovering from the wound inflected by Mandy's father. With her place at the school being threatened to be torn out from under her, Lora cannot see a future past the bombing and spoils of war that surround the country... And the death of her beloved Jesse.
As the war continues and the Iverson girls head home for the summer, Lora finds herself aiding fallen soldiers at a makeshift hospital, in Mandy's home, with his father being admitted to a mental institution. When word is sent that Mandy's brother is in fact alive and being held as a prisoner of war... The stars are clear, Lora is so cross the battlelines into enemy territory and rescue him. Why can everyone hear Jesse but her?
Both Mandy and Lora set out on the dangerous journey that neither is prepared for, but when Mandy starts to feel restless and uncomfortable in his own skin, they both know that it's only a matter of time before he sheds his skin and the transformation begins. Lora finds herself conflicted, without Jesse and feeling lonely, should she mourn for the boy who was taken from her, or open her heart to the one that is right in front of her... Holding her hand.
The deepest night was fantastic, even more so than the first in the series. The romantic interludes have been toned down, and the aspects of war have played heavily throughout the storyline. Lora slowly morphs into a strong and courageous young woman, proud of her heritage, while Mandy comes to grips with his new responsibilities and the rescue attempt of his brother.
The story is told in dual points of view from Mandy and Lora, but every few chapters, there are a few passages from Jesse, pining for his beloved and trying to reach her with his song. I love the vivid descriptions of the wartime era, the attire, the lavish surroundings.
I still don't fully understand the concept of dragons, stars and the connection, but completely forgot my confusion during The Deepest Night, it really was entertaining, intense and couldn't out it down until I had read the entire book.
The Deepest Night
(The Sweetest Dark: Book Two)
Written By Shana Abe
Expected Publication: 03 / 08 / 2013
320 Pages
320 Pages
To survive in a ruined world, she must embrace the darkness…
Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a walled-in city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten. Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them - the vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself dies and becomes one of the monsters.
Forced to flee her city, Allie must pass for human as she joins a ragged group of pilgrims seeking a legend - a place that might have a cure for the disease that killed off most of civilization and created the rabids, the bloodthirsty creatures who threaten human and vampire alike. And soon Allie will have to decide what and who is worth dying for…again.
Allison is an unregistered. She lives in the fringes, outside the vampire city. A world that was torn apart by disease, humans are considered as pets by vampires, who are now the upper class society. Humans are expected to register with a database, so vampire leaders can keep track of their whereabouts, and donate blood. Any registered citizen caught not donating regularly... Allison knows all too well, her mother was a victim of the cruel stranglehold the vampires lord over the remaining humans.
Allison spends her days hunting and foraging for food to help keep her small group alive. If only starvation were their biggest concern. Diseased animals and former humans, now rabid, seeing her as nothing more than a source of food. She loathes vampires, and the cruel world in which they've created. She would rather starve than become a servant to any bloodthirsty vampire. When Allison is attacked by rabid's and fighting for her last breath, she meets Kanin, who gives her a choice. She can choose to die a slow and painful death, or be reborn as a minion to the vampire sire.
After choosing to become what she had always feared most, Allison is expected to learn to hunt, to feed and fight. When she suddenly finds herself on her own, she stumbles across a group of humans and finds herself accepted into their community. If only they knew that she was nothing more than a soulless monster.
She finds herself attracted to Zeke. With his boyish charm, the friendly pacifist is more than just a meal to Allison. But would he ever feel the same if he knew what she truly were?
They group have been searching for the safe city if Eden for years. On the run from raiders and a vampire overlord, they soon discover that Allison isn't one of their kind. As she is forced to leave the group, she covertly follows them, guarding them and helping Zeke and the group fund Eden. Surely a soulless monster wouldn't care, right? With nightmares seen through the eyes of her sire, and the group being found by raiders, surely there is a better life for the humans out there.
I devoured The Immortal Rules. It was a unique and well written vampire novel, but with a post apocalyptic twist. You'll find yourself swept into Allison's world of destruction and devastation. Allie isn't your average heroine, she's tough, can wield a sword and you'll connect with her personal journey from human to vampire.
A supernatural, paranormal romance, set in a dystopian, post apocalyptic world. If it were legal to marry an inanimate object, The Immortal Rules and I would be living happily ever after in wedded bliss by now.
The Immortal Rules
(Blood Of Eden: Book One)
Written By Julie Kagawa
Published: 24 / 04 / 2012
484 Pages
484 Pages
Alexandria isn't sure she's going to make it to her eighteenth birthday - to her Awakening. A long forgotten, fanatical order is out to kill her, and if the Council ever discovers what she did in the Catskills, she's a goner... And so is Aiden.
If that's not freaky enough, whenever Alex and Seth spend time 'training', which really is just Seth's code word for some up close and personal one on one time, she ends up with another mark of the Apollyon, which brings her one step closer to Awakening ahead of schedule. Awesome.
But as her birthday draws near, her entire world shatters with a startling revelation and she's caught between love and Fate. One will do anything to protect her. One has been lying to her since the beginning. Once the gods have revealed themselves, unleashing their wrath, lives will be irrevocably changed... And destroyed.
Those left standing will discover if love is truly greater than Fate
Alex is back at the covenant after the fall out over the council meeting in New York. She knows that she is lucky to still have her freedom, but no half blood is truly free are they?
Upon her return, Alex receives word from New York that will change her life forever, and turns to Aiden. Things have never been the same with Aiden since the incident at the Zoo, why couldn't she have just kept the words from tumbling out. But slowly their unconventional and forbidden friendship begins to bloom again... This time neither of them can stop what's happening.
Seth tries to spend every waking moment with Alex, finding creative ways to help her on her journey to becoming the second Apollyon. But what is Seth hiding? Only when Alex is attacked, do the pieces start to fall into place.
The God Apollo has been walking among the halls of the covenant this entire time and can predict what will happen after Alex awakens. Will minister Telly and the council be overthrown? Or will the oracles visions be true to their word? Alex is in danger, whether it being furies ready to make an appearance, or a disgruntled god, she is scared she will lose herself once she awakens... But not if Aiden can help it.
This series just keeps improving with each book. While there really aren't any surprises with the storyline, it is entertaining and I couldn't seem to put this one down. Amid all the chaos in Deity, it was actually comical at times, which the previous in the series were sorely lacking. It reminded me of The Lux series. Be warned, it ends in a slight cliffhanger, it's not surprising, but it may make you send Jennifer L. Armentrout warnings about being a little quicker releasing Apollyon, the next in the series.
Deity
(Covenant Series: Book Three)
Written By Jennifer L. Armentrout
Published 13 / 10 / 2012
330 Pages
330 Pages
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