Review: The Sound by Sarah Alderson

Goodreads Summary:

When aspiring music journalist Ren Kingston takes a job nannying for a wealthy family on the exclusive island of Nantucket, playground for Boston's elite, she's hoping for a low-key summer reading books and blogging about bands. Boys are firmly off the agenda.

What she doesn't count on is falling in with a bunch of party-loving private school kids who are hiding some dark secrets, falling (possibly) in love with the local bad boy, and falling out with a dangerous serial killer...

Publication Date: August 1, 2013

The Sound is a YA book that I completely loved, but I definitely felt way too old to love it as much as I did. The story was a little bit cheesy, but sometimes I’m in the mood for books that I can grin throughout. There were a few tense and serious parts, but the murder mystery took a backseat to the love triangle drama.

Ren is a British nanny who spends the summer with the wealthy in Nantucket. There were a few clichés as far as how Americans were described by Ren and it did grow a little tiresome at times. But I did find her funny and I related to how she was trying to run away from a bad breakup back home and start over with new friends and new love interests.

Jesse and I had a complicated relationship through the book (I actually liked the guy who turned out to be a douche more for the majority of the novel). I just didn’t get what Ren saw in him at first especially when he basically threatened her during their initial meeting and he had put a guy in a coma the summer before (he of course had a reason for it that she finds out later. But still). But Jesse wormed his way into my heart and I ended up liking him by the last quarter of the book.

The plot of the novel really grabbed me and I found it hard to put the book down. I wanted to know all the secrets of Jesse and Ren’s new group of posh friends. There is also a nanny killer on the loose that is worked in as a subplot and I liked the suspenseful scenes that bookended the novel.

Overall, I really liked The Sound and I’m looking forward to reading more contemporaries by the author.

4/5 Stars

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

Stacking the Shelves #96

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.

Purchased:

Bastian's Storm by Shay Savage

For Review:

Homecoming by Jackie Sexton

Very Wicked Things by Ilsa Madden-Mills

His Reverie by Monica Murphy

The Last Changeling by Chelsea Pitcher

The Fall by Bethany Griffin

The Perfectionist by Sara Shepard

Blog Tour and Review: Dream Boy by Mary Crockett and Madelyn Rosenberg

DESCRIPTION:

If dreams can come true…then so can nightmares

One night Annabelle dreams of the perfect boy: tall and handsome with impossible blue eyes. Then, just as suddenly as he appeared, he’s gone…until he walks into her science class the next day. Perfect and REAL. The boy of her dreams. And when he brushes past her, he whispers “Annabelle.” Suddenly, Annabelle’s got the perfect boyfriend and a date to homecoming. Her life is like a dream come true...until her dreams stop and the nightmares begin.

EXCERPT:

I’ve always been a dreamer. Daydreams. Night dreams. Dreams of grandeur and dreams of escape. If I were an onion and you peeled back the papery outside, you’d find layer after layer of eye-watering dreams. And in the center, where there’s that little curlicue of onion heart? There’d be a puff of smoke from the dreams that burned away.

It was all just brain waves, I thought—disconnected, like the notebook that my friend Talon keeps. She draws a line down the middle of the page; on the right she writes everything she remembers about a dream, and on the left she puts notes about the stuff that’s happening in real life, things that might trigger her subconscious. Reality on one side, dreams on the other—a clear line between the two.

But it turns out there are no clear lines, just a jumble of what is and what might be. And all of it is real.

BLURBS:

“Dream Boy explores the mysterious world of dreams, where we access our deepest desires…the authors expertly weave fantasy and the real world in a perfect blend.” -- Erica Orloff, author of In Dreams

"Eerie, twisty, fast and funny, Dream Boy will forever change the way you see your dreams--and your nightmares. An exciting, imaginative look at what might happen when people from the corners of your mind suddenly show up in your real life." -- Lois Metzger, author of A Trick of the Light

REVIEWS: 

"Hits the chick-lit and romance buttons, adding suspense and an intriguing idea as well for nicely rounded entertainment." -- Kirkus Review

“Five stars... Perfect writing, perfect characters … perfect plot.” -- Paperback Wonderland

About Mary & Madelyn:

Mary Crockett likes turtles, licorice, and the Yankees. Madelyn Rosenberg likes cats, avocados, and the Red Sox. Luckily they both like the weirdness of dreams (and each other) enough to write novels together. The friendship has survived three moves, six kids and countless manuscript revisions. Madelyn lives just outside of Washington, D.C. Mary remains in the mountains near their hometowns in southwestern Virginia. You can find them on Twitter @marylovesbooks and @madrosenberg or their blogs at www.marycrockett.com and www.madelynrosenberg.com.

INDIE BOUND:

www.indiebound.org/book/9781402295836

AMAZON:

www.amazon.com/gp/product/1402295839

B&N:

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dream-boy-mary-crockett/1118586374?ean=9781402295836&isbn=9781402295836

DREAM BOY - by Mary Crockett & Madelyn Rosenberg - available July 1

My Review:

Dream Boy was an interesting YA read with a great premise. I loved the idea of dreams coming to life and it’s not something I’ve seen a lot of in young adult books. I particularly enjoyed the mystery aspect of the book and I also liked the will they or won’t they between Annabelle and her love interests.

Annabelle was a good narrator and I found her to be a likable and a strong female lead. Annabelle also has a great set of friends and the authors did a terrific job at developing the secondary characters. I found all of the characters relatable and it really drew me into trying to figure out along with them why their dreams were entering their reality.

Dream Boy felt a little younger than other books in the genre I have read lately, but as an adult I was still able to enjoy Annabelle’s story. I think younger teens will especially like the romantic angst between the characters. The relationships were all very sweet and I loved Annabelle’s best friend Will.

Dream Boy was a quick and captivating read. I liked that it was a standalone and all the plot points were neatly resolved at the close. I’m looking forward to reading more of the authors’ works.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Book Release Updates and Finding Autumn Teaser

Hope everyone is having a fantastic summer so far! I've been crazy busy with my boys being off from school and trying to fit in editing for Finding Autumn (Falling for Autumn 1.5). The good news is the release is still on track and the book will be available as an ebook and paperback on July 15!

My next projects will be the standalone Pretending Hearts (Falling for Autumn #2/Delia's novel) and the Second Sight spinoff Deadly Prophecy (Declan's point of view). I've written a portion of each and I hope to have the first draft of Pretending Hearts completed by the end of summer and Declan's book finished soon after. Once there both completed, I'm going to write the two Memory Witch sequels back to back. Wow, I'm feeling exhausted just talking about my plan.

Hope you all enjoy Blake's book! It was really fun to write Falling for Autumn from his point of view and share what happens to him and Autumn following the end of the book. Enjoy the teaser :)

  

Book Spotlight and Excerpt: The Devil Made Me Do It by Shawna Romkey

The Devil Made Me Do It

Book Two: Speak of the Devil series

By Shawna Romkey

Coming July 1 - Go to hell!

The demons strike back!

Lily is working with the angels to stifle the last of the demon outbreaks and to figure out how to stop the Silence of God, so life can get back to boring normality. But all hell breaks loose when she’s stolen from school and brought face to face with the devil himself. Lily has to find her way back home to Luc, crack the prophecy that breaks the curse silencing God, and figure out how she and Luc can ever really be together; but Lucifer has other plans for her that don’t include her ever getting out of Hell in tact.

Book One, Speak of the Devil, is currently on sale for $2.99 for the Kindle.

Excerpt

Why me? I asked this question a lot, when I died, when I lived, when I’d lost my friends, when I’d hooked up with angels, when I was chased by demons, so it seemed trivial to ask it now, but why me? Why couldn’t I have a regular non-angel boyfriend to make out with and not worry about ruining, well, everything for everybody everywhere?

Snap out of it, Lily, I told myself. You have an amazing ability and super-hot— too hot— angel boyfriend, a blessed life that someone upstairs seems to think is valuable and worthy of protection. Quit feeling sorry for yourself and girl up.

“Right, girl up. I can do this,” I said aloud. My body was under control finally and I felt like I could go back to class as long as we got a new scene to work on. But I’d hurt Luc. I had to talk to him. I had to fix it and make it right. He was suffering with this as much as I was and probably more so since he had to have that pious-angel behavior and all.

I stood to go, pushing the vanity chair back as I did so.

“Lily!” someone whispered.
“What?” I turned to see if Cassie was there.
“Lily, look!” It was difficult to tell if it was a male or female voice since it was a whisper.

The voice was coming from behind me. I looked back around – that’s when I saw the surface of the mirror tremble, as though it were liquid. It rippled from the center. “Lilith!” The whisper came from the mirror.

Too late I remembered something Luc and Belle had said about mirrors. The surface splashed out toward me, and though I reflexively turned away and pulled back, the watery mirror grabbed me with its newly formed reflective arms and pulled me inside.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Shawna Romkey, teacher by day, writer by night (or day or whenever anyone leaves her alone long enough to get some work done). Bestselling YA / NA paranormal author of Speak of the Devil. The second in the series, The Devil Made Me Do It, will release July 1.

Shawna is from Kansas City, Missouri, but resides in Nova Scotia in a house by the sea with her husband, two sons, and currently two dogs but that’s subject to change depending on the local homeless dog population.

For more info, check out her website at www.shawnaromkey.com.

Links:

Facebook  |  Twitter  | Pinterest  |  Goodreads 

Stacking the Shelves #95

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.

Purchased:

Rapture Romance Anthology

For Review:

Connecting Strangers by Rachel Carrington

Pieces of Olivia by Melissa West

How We Deal with Gravity by Ginger Scott

Prototype by M.D. Waters

Wide Awake by Shelly Crane

Review: The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings

The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An action-packed, blood-soaked, futuristic debut thriller set in a world where the murder rate is higher than the birthrate. For fans of Moira Young’s Dust Lands series, La Femme Nikita, and the movie Hanna.

Meadow Woodson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has been trained by her father to fight, to kill, and to survive in any situation, lives with her family on a houseboat in Florida. The state is controlled by The Murder Complex, an organization that tracks the population with precision.

The plot starts to thicken when Meadow meets Zephyr James, who is—although he doesn’t know it—one of the MC’s programmed assassins. Is their meeting a coincidence? Destiny? Or part of a terrifying strategy? And will Zephyr keep Meadow from discovering the haunting truth about her family?

Action-packed, blood-soaked, and chilling, this is a dark and compelling debut novel by Lindsay Cummings.

Publication Date: June 10, 2014

The Murder Complex was a solid YA dystopian that I got really into. The premise was so dark and the world building was one of the bleakest I ever read. It was close to too depressing so I appreciated the hero Zephyr and his flashes of hopefulness. Meadow is a very tough heroine and I started liking her more as the story progressed. There was so much suspense in the novel, especially in the second half. I'd definitely recommend the book to fans of YA dystopians with the one warning that there is a lot of gratuitous violence between the pages.

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