Stacking the Shelves #129

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews and features books you've added to your shelves, both physical and virtual.

Library Books:

Deceptions by Kelley Armstrong

Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz

For Review:

All We Left Behind by Ingrid Sundberg

Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson

The Blind by Shelley Coriell

The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie

Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes by Karin Slaughter

Untouchable Things by Tara Guha

Review: Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin

Summary:

For fans of Laura Lippman and Gillian Flynn comes an electrifying novel of stunning psychological suspense.

A girl’s memory lost in a field of wildflowers.
A killer still spreading seeds.

At seventeen, Tessa became famous for being the only surviving victim of a vicious serial killer. Her testimony put him on death row. Decades later, a mother herself, she receives a message from a monster who should be in prison. Now, as the execution date rapidly approaches, Tessa is forced to confront a chilling possibility: Did she help convict the wrong man?

Publication Date: August 11, 2015

Black-Eyed Susans is a tough book to rate. For most of the novel, I was completely enthralled with the plot. Psychological suspense is one of my favorite genres and I really love when an author like Heaberlin can keep a reader guessing. Until the conclusion, the book was five stars all day long. I just felt like the way that the novel ended left me with too many unanswered questions.

I liked both versions of the main character Tessa: the teenaged version in therapy following an attempted murder attempt as well as adult Tessa who is continuously haunted by the holes in her memory about the night of her abduction. I thought the setup was good and I really wanted to find out what Tessa had locked away in her mind.

The writing in the book is exceptional. It was moody and beautiful and I felt instantly transported into Tessa’s dark memories. The author really made me want to uncover the mysteries along with Tessa. The suspense in the book was powerful as the countdown commences on whether or not the wrong killer will be executed.

The book contains a lot of tidbits that I found intriguing. The author obviously did her research as the book delves into the use of DNA derived from bone fragments in order to identify the serial killer’s victims. I also appreciated the random serial killer trivia sprinkled in throughout the story.

I didn’t guess the ending at all. And despite my surprise over the revelations, I really didn’t love how the story wrapped up. I just felt like the story was building up to a very dramatic conclusion that I never got.

Despite my slight disappointment in the ending, I would still recommend Black-Eyed Susans and I’m eager to read more from the author

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of the novel for review! 

Book Blitz: A Different Side by C.M. Doporto

A Different Side (University Park #4)

by C.M. Doporto 

Release Date: 09/14/15

New Adult

(only $2.99)

Summary from Goodreads:

The highly anticipated story from the University Park Series.

Park Hill University’s star quarterback, Raven Davenport, has every woman dying to get caught in his trap, but he’s only interested in catching one girl – Lexi Thompson. But will he learn how to deal with his inner demons or will they continue to control him to the point of destroying what he loves most? Hear Raven and Lexy's story from a different side.

Buy Links:

(Only $2.99 release week only)

Amazon:

http://goo.gl/XXOXRL

B&N:

http://goo.gl/selQSu

iTunes:

https://goo.gl/LREqsd

Google Play:

https://goo.gl/oIeie4

Kobo:

https://goo.gl/NKS3aW

About the Author

CM Doporto lives in the great state of Texas with her husband and son enjoying life with their extensive family along with their Chihuahua, Mexican Redhead Parrot, and several fish.

She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from The University of Texas at Arlington. She briefly worked in the area of Public Relations and Advertising and then pursued a career in the field of Human Resources. CM considers herself a life-long learner and returned to school and earned her Master of Art’s Degree in Organizational Development from Dallas Baptist University.

She writes Young Adult and New Adult Sci-Fi/Urban Fantasy stories about ordinary women who do extraordinary things, become a heroine, and find love along the way.

Author Links:

   

Review: A Million Miles Away by Lara Avery

Summary:

Perfect for fans of Nicholas Sparks, this breathtaking story of love and loss is guaranteed to break your heart and sweep you off your feet.

When high school senior Kelsey's identical twin sister, Michelle, dies in a car crash, Kelsey is left without her other half. The only person who doesn't know about the tragedy is Michelle's boyfriend, Peter, recently deployed to Afghanistan. But when Kelsey finally connects with Peter online, she can't bear to tell him the truth. Active duty has taken its toll, and Peter, thinking that Kelsey is Michelle, says that seeing her is the one thing keeping him alive. Caught up in the moment, Kelsey has no choice: She lets Peter believe that she is her sister.

As Kelsey keeps up the act, she crosses the line from pretend to real. Soon, Kelsey can't deny that she's falling, hard, for the one boy she shouldn't want.

Publication Date: July 7, 2015

A Million Miles Away is a really hard book to rate. I think my rating is going to fall somewhere in the middle because I really enjoyed certain aspects of the story while I felt disconnected from other parts. I think the premise was solid, but the execution was just okay.

For the most part, I liked the main character Kelsey. I couldn’t imagine how horrible it must be to lose your twin in such a sudden way. She not only has to deal with her own grief, but also must try to handle the difficult grieving process her parents are going through.

I got why Kelsey pretended to be her sister in order to learn more about Michelle after her death. I think that was the strongest part of the book: the way the author showed the complexities of the grieving process. I empathized that Kelsey wanted to find that connection once again with Michelle.

But she definitely took things too far with Michelle’s boyfriend Peter. And although the romance was sweet and I really liked Peter, I couldn’t get behind their relationship. I understood at first why Kelsey lied, but she had too many chances to make things right and she didn’t. I was glad she finally tried to fix her mistakes at the end, but I honestly thought she got off easy for the things she did.

Overall, I liked A Million Miles Away and despite my mixed feelings about the characters, I would recommend the story to fans of YA novels with a lot of heart.  

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of the novel for review!

Cover Reveal: Surge by Melissa West

Surge (The Taking 0.5)

by Melissa West

Release Date: 04/05/16

Entangled Teen

Summary from Goodreads:

Sixteen-year-old alien Val Stone was born for one mission-kill teenage Randolf "Rolf" Cartier before he fulfills the prophecy, becomes the future American president, and murderers thousands of her kind.

Val is ready to sacrifice herself for the good of the prophecy. She's learned every detail of Rolf's life. She knows when he wakes, each step he takes throughout his day, and the exact time when he falls asleep. She's prepared to strike.

But what she doesn't know is that Rolf's been watching her, too. Waiting for her. Ready to overpower her and save himself. Only when the day arrives, doubt overcomes purpose, and suddenly they discover the prophecy was all a hoax.

Now they're running against the clock, desperate to reveal who created the fake prophecy before the human killing spree becomes the complete wipeout of the human race.

Books in this series:
(covers linked to Goodreads)
  

Links to Gravity (Book One):
Goodreads│Amazon│B&N│Kobo Books

Links for Hover (Book Two):

Goodreads│Amazon│B&N

│Kobo Books

Links for Collide (Book Three)

Goodreads│Amazon│B&N│Kobo

About the Author

Melissa West lives in a tiny suburb of Atlanta, GA with her husband and daughter. She pretends to like yoga, actually likes to read, and could not live without coffee. She holds a B.A. in Communication Studies and an M.S. in Graphic Communication, both from Clemson University. Yeah, her blood runs orange.

Author Links:

   

Review: This Is One Moment by Mila Gray

Summary:

Didi Monroe’s waited her whole life for the type of romance you see in the movies, so when Hollywood heartthrob Zac Ridgemont sweeps her off her feet, Didi believes she might finally have met the one.

While Zac’s away filming for the summer, Didi begins her internship at a military hospital in California. There, she meets wounded Marine Noel Walker.

Frustrated on the outside and broken on the inside, Walker’s a pain-in-the-ass patient who refuses all help.

Yet Didi can’t help but be drawn to him, and though he’s strictly out of bounds it soon becomes impossible to ignore the sparks flying between them.

As the attraction simmers into dangerous territory, Didi finds herself falling hard for a man she knows is going to break her heart. Because Walker doesn’t believe in love or happy ever afters. So what possible future can there be?

Then tragedy hits, shattering both their worlds, and Didi is forced to choose between fighting for love or merely falling for the illusion of it.

Publication Date: September 10, 2015

I read This Is One Moment because I really loved the author’s previous novel in the series called Come Back to Me. And although I enjoyed the story of Kit and Jessa in the first book, I fell madly in love with Didi and Walker. Although I gave the first book close to five stars, This Is One Moment was a five-star plus read!

The setup was unlike anything I read before: Didi is a psychology intern at a military hospital where Noel Walker is recuperating. Walker has been through hell and is one of only two survivors of a vicious military attack. Although Walker is physically wounded, his emotional scars are much worse. Didi is a very empathetic person and she really makes an effort to help Walker despite his efforts to push her away.

The romance was epic in this one. Walker and Didi have so many obstacles to overcome and I really wasn’t sure if they would end up together. Walker was such a complex character and I liked that the story wasn’t just about the romance, but also about Walker coming to terms with his inability to save all of his men. Like the previous book, the novel touches upon PTSD in a very insightful way. Didi could be a frustrating character at times, especially in regards to her relationship with the movie star, but the love triangle did create some extra tension in the story.

This Is One Moment is an absolute must read! I loved everything about it and the ending was perfect. Although Come Back to Me is a great book, you can definitely read this novel as a standalone.

Rating: 5/5 Stars

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of the novel for review!

Guest Review: The Lies We Tell by Meg Carter

Today I'd like to introduce you to my newest reviewer Joanna! I really enjoy reading her reviews and I'm sure all of you will love them as well. Here's her bio:

Joanna Franklin Bell is a writer living outside Baltimore, MD. Her articles can be read in "Baltimore Magazine" and various Patch.com sites; her award-winning short story can be found on the "Single Dad Laughing" blog; and her books can be found on Amazon. "Muse: A Cat's Story" is her children's chapter book, "Mrs. Just-So" is her children's picture book, and "Take a Load Off, Mona Jamborski" and "That Birds Would Sing" are her novels. Her third novel, "See No Demons, Hear No Demons" will be released in 2016. Catch up with Joanna on Facebook at: 

https://www.facebook.com/JoannaFranklinBell

Now onto the book review!

Summary:

Can we ever escape our past?

The last time Katy saw Jude was on a school trip, when Jude was attacked by a stranger and Katy ran away. Twenty years later, Jude is back, and her reappearance coincides with a series of unsettling incidents: a stranger appears in the downstairs flat; one night Katy’s house is vandalised; her mother is mugged and her home ransacked. And Jude seems to know an uncomfortable amount about Katy’s current life...

For fans of Gone Girl and Girl on the Train, THE LIES WE TELL is an addictive, complex and completely gripping psychological thriller in which present and past intertwine to devastating effect. Forced to revisit the same rocky waters of friendship and power they inhabited when they were fifteen, as the story reaches its explosive climax, Jude and Katy realise that when it comes to memory, truth and family – nothing and no-one are what they seem.

Publication Date: August 17, 2015

Joanna's Review:

"The Lies We Tell" by Meg Carter started out with a bang: the ending. This is because the complimentary copy I received on my Kindle from the publisher loaded on the very last page, which I read quite closely and earnestly because I thought I was reading the quote which began the whole story, and not the one that ended it. So my experience reading this book was no doubt unique.

Once I got smart and started at the beginning, I discovered that what the ending had given away did nothing to detract me from the growing intrigue of the plot. The book does owe a lot to the forces that create story lines like, "I Know What You Did Last Summer." Two grown women (Jude and Katy) are Carter's protagonist and antagonist, and their teenage selves in flashback reveal what they did, didn't do, may have done, forgot doing, are conflicted about, are vengeful over, last summer. Or in their case, many summers ago. Oh, and for the record, I quite liked the antagonist (Jude) while I good-n-loathed the protagonist (Katy). Is this how I am meant to feel about the characters? It's a question I wouldn't mind asking the author. I kept hoping Katy would take the third overly-long step off a dangerous precipice in her life. Since, in the book, she's already taken two and unfortunately survived them both, neither of which have diddly to do with the plot nor character development.

Other things that have diddly to do with the plot: 1. Pages and pages and pages of skim-worthy prose. 2. Overuse of repeated phrases and words that the author apparently forgot she already used and no editor was kind enough to point out. 3. Lots of bald typos, but perhaps the copy I read wasn't through its final proofread, even though there was no such disclaimer, so I think it's probably just sloppy. 4. Characters who berate the world for the exact same shortcomings, without any intentional parallel drawn among them: it's more like the author could only think of one thing that would really hurt, so she assigned it as a backstory, indiscriminately, to everyone (I'll call it the "Who's Your Daddy Drama"). That said, the author can actually write. She can craft a sentence and sometimes a good one, and she can build a simmering intrigue. She can also throw in gratuitous sexytime which -- in keeping with many other pages -- does nothing to further the plot nor character development, but does stick up like little nippley coming-of-age gems in what's otherwise often a bland whitewash of exposition.  Her fault is that she simmers for too long, and the story gets tiresome -- I finally just skimmed and skimmed to get to the ending of, to find out what all the last secrets are. However: that is also her greatest strength. I skimmed and skimmed to get to the ending, because I wanted to know the ending! I cared! I was ready for some answers and some justice and the big Scooby Doo-style reveal! Of course, I already knew one of the secrets, since my book loaded backwards, but there was plenty else to learn.

The first third of the book showed much promise. After that, it dragged and became quite repetitive and fell apart, losing stars along the way. I'd like to see what the author writes next, since much of this could be a first-book-flaw. And I would read another of her stories; however, I'd just hesitate to recommend this one.

As I mentioned, I did receive a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

3/5 Stars