On Fridays, we take a look at what has happened around here in the last week, what’s coming up that we are excited about and anything else that we may have to share!
♥ Enjoy!
Giveaways:
5 E-copies of WE AWAKEN by Calista Lynne. Enter → HERE.
Enter to win five (5) Exclusive Print Copies of FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, A Wedding Belles Novella. Enter → HERE.
Just Finished and Loved:
Genesis by Bernard Beckett → Anna’s Review
5 Stars! Honestly, if you’re not afraid of unusual reads and can cope with delaying your understanding, you’re going to LOVE this.
The island Republic has emerged from a ruined world. Its citizens are safe but not free, until a man named Adam Forde rescues a girl from the sea. Fourteen-year-old Anax thinks she knows her history. She’d better. She’s sat facing three Examiners and her five-hour examination has just begun. The subject is close to her heart: Adam Forde, her long-dead hero.
✩✮✩✮✩
An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes #1) by Sabaa Tahir → Chelsea’s Review
5 Stars! Epic. Thrilling. Brutal. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t sit still. This story was so gripping, so addicting, so mesmerizing that I was a prisoner held under it’s intoxicating spell.
Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free. Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear. It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do. But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy. There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.
✩✮✩✮✩
Ninth Key (The Mediator #2) by Meg Cabot → Chelsea’s Review
5 Stars! Ahhh this series will NEVER get old. Never. What a refreshing reassurance.
Ghosts ruin everything. Especially your love life. Everything is going great for Suze. Her new life in California is a whirlwind of parties and excellent hair days. Tad Beaumont, the hottest boy in town, has even asked Suze out on her very first date. Suze is so excited that she’s willing to ignore her misgivings about Tad… particularly the fact that he’s not Jesse, whose ghostly status – not to mention apparent disinterest in her – make him unattainable. What Suze can’t ignore, however, is the ghost of a murdered woman whose death seems directly connected to dark secrets hidden in none other than Tad Beaumont’s past.
✩✮✩✮✩
Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To by Dean Burnett → Anna’s Review
5 Stars! Well, my idiot brain genuinely liked this book very much, and it’s always right, isn’t it?
It’s happened to all of us at some point. You walk into the kitchen, or flip open your laptop, or stride confidently up to a lectern, filled with purpose—and suddenly haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re doing. Welcome to your idiot brain. Yes, it is an absolute marvel in some respects—the seat of our consciousness, the pinnacle (so far) of evolutionary progress, and the engine of all human experience—but your brain is also messy, fallible, and about 50,000 years out-of-date. We cling to superstitions, remember faces but not names, miss things sitting right in front of us, and lie awake at night while our brains replay our greatest fears on an endless loop. Yet all of this, believe it or not, is the sign of a well-meaning brain doing its best to keep you alive and healthy. In Idiot Brain, neuroscientist Dean Burnett celebrates blind spots, blackouts, insomnia, and all the other downright laughable things our minds do to us, while also exposing the many mistakes we’ve made in our quest to understand how our brains actually work. Expertly researched and entertainingly written, this book is for everyone who has wondered why their brain appears to be sabotaging their life, and what on earth it is really up to.
✩✮✩✮✩
4 Stars:
The Ghost and the Goth (The Ghost and the Goth #1) by Stacey Kade → Chelsea’s Review
3 Star:
To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1) by Lauren Layne → Chelsea’s Review
2.5 Star:
To Have and to Hold (The Wedding Belles #1) by Lauren Layne → Jen’s Review
The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books #1) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón → Anna’s Review
✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮
Reading Next:
It’s been two centuries since the Telumiras arrived and settled on Earth, changing everything —including the genetic makeup of humans. Living in the section of land occupied by her own species, Ness Kimler tries to be a normal teenager, worrying about her career and finding a mate—questions to be answered at her upcoming graduation. But before that happens, Ness accidentally crosses the Great Fence separating humans and Telumiras. For 200 years, the barrier has been in place, preserving the peace on a planet divided between two species. What she finds is that the Fence isn’t just about keeping the aliens in—it’s about keeping the humans out. And Ness Kimler just broke the rules.
✩✮✩✮✩
In the first book, An Ember in the Ashes, Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free. Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear. It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do. But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy. There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.
✩✮✩✮✩
It’s Boston, 1919, and the Cast Iron club is packed. On stage, hemopaths—whose “afflicted” blood gives them the ability to create illusions through art—Corinne and Ada have been best friends ever since infamous gangster Johnny Dervish recruited them into his circle. By night they perform for Johnny’s crowds, and by day they con Boston’s elite. When a job goes wrong and Ada is imprisoned, she realizes how precarious their position is. After she escapes, two of the Cast Iron’s hires are shot, and Johnny disappears. With the law closing in, Corinne and Ada are forced to hunt for answers, even as betrayal faces them at every turn.
✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮
Upcoming Releases:
Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London’s West End on 30th July 2016. It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children. While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.
✩✮✩✮✩
Check out our list of upcoming releases that we can’t wait for → HERE
✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮
Sales:
$0.99
 4.5 Stars! Jen’s Review |
 5 Stars! Jen’s Review Chelsea’s Review |
 4.5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review |
 4 Stars! Laura’s Review |
 |
$1.99
 New Sale 5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review Anna’s Review |
 New Sale |
 New Sale 5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review |
 New Sale |
 |
 5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review |
 Chelsea’s Review |
 |
 |
 5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review |
 |
 4.5 Stars! Anna’s Review |
 4.5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review |
 Chelsea’s Review |
$2.99
 New Sale 4.5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review |
 4.5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review |
 5 Stars! Anna’s Review Jen’s Review Chelsea’s Review |
 4.5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review |
 |
$3.03+
 New Sale |
 New Sale 4.5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review |
 4 Stars! Chelsea’s Review |
 4.5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review |
 |
 4.5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review |
 5 Stars! Cheslea’s Review Jen’s Review |
 |
 |
 Anna’s Review |
Freebies:
 |
 |
 4 Stars! Anna’s Review |
Oh I grabbed An Ember in the Ashes when it was on sale but I haven’t read it yet! I will have to move it up my TBR!!
Samantha recently posted…Freebie Friday July 29th