Wishlist: STRUCK

Struck by Jennifer Bosworth

Genre: Urban Fantasy 

Publication Date: 8 May 2012

Description:  
Mia Price is a lightning addict.

She’s been struck so many times she’s lost count. She can’t sleep, she’s covered in veiny red “lightning scars,” and repeated strikes have even stopped her heart on occasion. Still, Mia can’t resist a storm.

That's why Los Angeles, where it never rains, is the perfect place for her to find peace . . . until a massive earthquake devastates the city.

Now Mia finds herself struggling to hold her family together in a strange and terrifying new version of Los Angeles. The beaches have become massive tent cities populated by millions of homeless. Downtown is a wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the attendees drawn to the destruction by a magnetic force they cannot deny.

The blind prophet of a doomsday cult called the Church of Light, who predicted the earthquake with frightening accuracy, says a storm is coming to usher in the end of days, and only his Followers will be saved. Mia’s traumatized mom has become obsessed with the Church of Light, while her younger brother Parker is desperate to join a second doomsday cult called the Seekers. But Mia is the one both cults need.

The Seekers are recruiting people with an energy-based power they call the “Spark,” and Mia has it stronger than most. They claim the false prophet of the Church of Light will bring about the end of the world, and they are the only ones who can stand against him.

But without Mia on their side, they will fail.

Mia’s lightning addiction is both the key to saving the world . . . and destroying it.
Source: Info in the Description was taken from http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10647702-struck on 26/08/2011.

WW28: MASKED BY MOONLIGHT

WW28
A chance to showcase your favourite!

• First you grab our Wicked Wednesday pic.
• Then you grab a book. Turn to page 28. Take the first sentence. And then you post it in your site with a link back to WW28.
• Come back to Cherry Mischievous - WW28 and give us the url of your post (in a comment at a WW28 post) so that other WW28 readers can find your WW28 offering.

WW28 book offering: Masked By Moonlight by Nancy Gideon

"I'll speak to her. I'll arrange a time. I'd rather not wake them, considering what they've been through."

Seems like our character here is a considerate one :)

About Masked By Moonlight:

IN THIS STUNNING FIRST BOOK FROM NANCY GIDEON’S SIZZLING NEW SERIES, A TENACIOUS COP AND HER SHAPE-SHIFTING ENEMY SACRIFICE EVERYTHING FOR FORBIDDEN DESIRE.

ALL SHE WANTS IS REVENGE.

New Orleans homicide detective Charlotte Caissie is dedicated to bringing down the crime boss responsible for her father’s murder. Using Jimmy Legere’s mysterious and irresistible right-hand man is a dangerous gamble, and not only due to his reputation as more monster than man. Because her feelings for Max Savoie are . . . complicated.

THEN HE RISKS HIS LIFE TO SAVE HERS.

Rescued from the swamps as a child, Max exists silently in Legere’s shadow, heeding only his voice—until Charlotte Caissie awakens his emotions and tests his loyalties. Stepping outside his cautious rules threatens more than just his heart. He could expose his darkest secret.

NOW THEY’RE BOTH IN OVER THEIR HEADS.

Testing boundaries they weren’t meant to cross means facing the truth about who and what they are—and what they need from each other. If Max is the murderer she seeks, Charlotte could be his next victim. She can’t afford to trust any man. Good thing Max isn’t one.

Source: Info in the About Masked By Moonlight was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6979554-masked-by-moonlight on 01/10/2011.

August Grayson and the Appeal of the Rogue

Rogue /rōg/ (n): A dishonest or unprincipled man.

Or, in short, a bad boy wearing either a cravat or a top hot, sometimes with a riding crop or gloves, but always with a wicked smile.

One of the reasons many romance writers choose to create works set in the past is to invoke a time when social mores were not as they were today. There were proper ways for a gentleman to court a young lady, and equally respectable ways for a proper lady to appeal to a gentleman. We create this environment and then, quite often, we blow it all to hell. Our young lady becomes a brazen flirt or an outspoken, opinionated rebel. And our dear good sir becomes a rakish, roguish brute.

And the reason is simple. It’s the same reason J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brothers have a rough edge and a Texas-sized ego. It’ s the reason we like to see the evil-battling witch fall for the vamp. Ladies, can I hear it all together? We love the bad boys, am I right? Because, we know secretly, he can’t be that bad. There’s a reason, a hidden pain he keeps buried that we with our feminine ways can excavate and exorcise. All he needs is the right kind of love, and it transform him in to the ideal lover we’ve always dreamed of.

In fiction, that’s the way it goes.

In A Love by Any Measure, the part of the rogue is played by Lord August Grayson. When our heroine, Maeve O’Connor, finds herself face-to-face with the dashing, ebony-haired Englishman, she feels “two inches tall and made of mud.” But Maeve’s constitution isn’t made of sand. She stands up against the landlord of her Irish tenancy with as much tenacity as a bull. As Maeve and August learn more of each other, Maeve discovers that there is indeed more to August than his roguish ways. In fact, she finds herself falling for him, despite the fact that she’s very engaged to a proper Irishman already, the honorable and adoring Owen Murphy. Owen is a good man, and Maeve knows he’s worthy of her love and that most girls in Killarney wouldn’t mind being in her position. She should love Owen. She should be overjoyed that she’s to be his wife. She should, but marrying Owen means displeasing August. And when you’ve tamed a rogue and made him yours? Well, it’s like taking in a loyal dog – you can’t just throw him back in the street, can you?

Guest Post: Rhiannon Paille

"I've met some writers, but none of them take it as seriously as you do."

That's what Myles had to say about me at comic con. He was a teenage boy who stopped by my table and bought a book so he could get a free hug from my cover model.

My table design wasn't elaborate, bookmarks, posters, books, a couple of decorative pieces, a whiteboard with prices, a table cloth and a fancy shawl. I don't know how all of that translated into me taking my writing seriously, but it did.

When I began my journey into publication I had one thing on my mind, make a good show. I've learned that book sales are one thing, book quality is another thing and how you make it look is the important thing. I found that for me, some of the most important things were the little things, not the money made off the book. It's the opportunity to appear on other blogs, the opportunity to have a killer book cover, to have bookmarks, posters, appear at events, talk with fans, geek out with people, celebrate with people, have a killer book trailer, etc. etc.

I have a small fan club for the book growing locally, and we're soon going to put something online because honestly? When we all get together, the energy in the group is just so amazing and every single one of them is behind me 100%. At the end of the day, all I wanted to do was go out there and make it look good. Just because I didn't have a big publisher behind me didn't mean I couldn't have pretty bookmarks and an awesome book trailer. It also didn't mean I couldn't have die hard fans of my work.

When I was a head coordinator for comic con, one of our mottos was that we were going to go big or go home. There was never any point in doing something if we weren't going to dedicate ourselves to it 100%.

If I wanted to depress myself with the truth I could. I'm ranked in the 350,000's on Amazon right now, but this past weekend someone stopped at my table and said, "Oh this was the book I wanted to pick up." The girl, Jamie, already knew I was going to be there.

I also had someone say they had my other book. My reaction was, "Really!? Wow!" (because nobody bought that book, seriously, he must be like the one guy in Winnipeg that did.)

Myles came back the next day to tell me he read the first few chapters of my book and they were so good he told his parents about me. They own a local used bookstore in Winnipeg that wants to put up a display of my book around Christmas. They also invited me down for a signing and maybe a reading.

So you see? Being serious isn't a bad thing, in fact, I think it's a very good thing.

Namaste,
Rhi

Website: www.rhiannonpaille.com
Blog: http://rhiannonpaille.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/psychicrhiannon
Twitter: @RhiannonPaille

About Flame Of Surrender:

The boy who follows death meets the girl who could destroy the world.

Krishani thinks he’s doomed until he meets Kaliel, the one girl on the island of Avristar who isn’t afraid of him. She’s unlike the other girls, she swims with merfolk, talks to trees and blooms flowers with her touch. What he doesn’t know is that she’s a flame, one of nine individually hand crafted weapons, hidden in the body of a seemingly harmless girl.

Nobody has fallen in love with a flame until now. She becomes Krishani’s refuge from the dreams of death and the weather abilities he can’t control. Striking down thousand year old trees with lightning isn’t something he tries to do, it just happens. When the Ferryman dies, Krishani knows that he’s the next and that a lifetime of following death is his destiny.

And Kaliel can’t come with him. The Valtanyana are hunting the flames, the safest place for her is Avristar. Krishani can’t bear to leave her, and one innocent mistake grants the Valtanyana access to their mystical island. They’re coming for Kaliel, and they won’t stop until every last living creature on Avristar is dead. She has to choose, hide, face them, or awaken the flame and potentially destroy herself.

Source: Info in the About Flame Of Surrender was taken from http://rhiannonpaille.blogspot.com/p/books-in-progress.html.

WW28: PURE

WW28
A chance to showcase your favourite!

• First you grab our Wicked Wednesday pic.
• Then you grab a book. Turn to page 28. Take the first sentence. And then you post it in your site with a link back to WW28.
• Come back to Cherry Mischievous - WW28 and give us the url of your post (in a comment at a WW28 post) so that other WW28 readers can find your WW28 offering.

WW28 book offering: Pure by Julianna Baggott

"Let me just see it."

There seems to be a mystery in this book somewhere...

About Pure:

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .
Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

Source: Info in the About Pure was taken from http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9680114-pure on 22/09/2011.

Review: BLAZE OF MEMORY

Blaze Of Memory by Nalini Singh
Book 7 of the PsyChangeling series

Genre: adult urban fantasy

About Blaze Of Memory:

Nalini Singh returns to the Psy/Changeling world and its “breathtaking blend of passion, adventure, and the paranormal”* as a woman without a past becomes the pawn of a man who controls her future…

Dev Santos discovers her unconscious and battered, with no memory of who she is. All she knows is that she’s dangerous. Charged with protecting his people’s most vulnerable secrets, Dev is duty-bound to eliminate all threats. It’s a task he’s never hesitated to complete…until he finds himself drawn to a woman who might yet prove the enemy’s most insidious weapon.

Stripped of her memories by a shadowy oppressor, and programmed to carry out cold-blooded murder, Katya Haas is fighting desperately for her sanity itself. Her only hope is Dev. But how can she expect to gain the trust of a man who could very well be her next target? For in this game, one must die…

Source: Info in the About Blaze Of Memory was taken from the author's website at http://www.nalinisingh.com/blaze.php on 05/06/2011.

My Thoughts:

Blaze Of Memory has the same masterful author's voice that I know of from Nalini Singh. However this book did not read as good as the previous books. For some reason this book felt like Ms. Singh was not in her usual top form when she wrote it. It was still a wonderful read, don't get me wrong, it just didn't read as good as the other books in the series to me. It was also a slow start but I persevered because I thought that I had to read it anyway to have a better appreciation and understanding of subsequent books in the series which I fully intend to read, me being a long-time PsyChangeling series fan. So I trudged on. And I was glad I perservered because it did pick up about three quarters into the book until the end. It was a heart-wrenching read! But I am not going to say anymore about the end because otherwise I'd be giving out major spoilers which could potentially ruin the book for you, so that's that. I also have a couple of minor issues with this book regarding the male protagonist which did not quite make sense, but I choose to ignore it for now. Overall, I enjoyed this book though it wasn't the best book in the series.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story Telling Quality = 4
World Building = 5
Character Development = 3.5
Writing Style = 3.5
Plot = 4
Pace = 3
Story Itself = 4
Ending = 3

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Psy-Changeling Series:
Click on the cover image for more info.

Review: CLUB DEAD

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
Read by Johanna Parker
Book 3 of the Sookie Stackhouse series
Format: audiobook

Genre: adult urban fantasy

About Club Dead:

Things between cocktail waitress Sookie and her vampire boyfriend Bill seem to be going excellently (apart from the small matter of him being undead) until he leaves town for a while. A long while. Bill's sinister boss Eric has an idea of where to find him, whisking her off to Jackson, Mississippi to mingle with the under-underworld at Club Dead. When she finally catches up with the errant vampire, he is in big trouble and caught in an act of serious betrayal. This raises serious doubts as to whether she should save him or start sharpening a few stakes of her own ...

Source: Info in the About Club Dead was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/140082.Club_Dead on 12/09/2011.

My Thoughts:

I listened to this audiobook after I watched True Blood Season 3. As opposed to me reading the books before I watched Seasons 1 & 2. I can tell you that Season 3 has deviated a lot from the book. I also started getting confused between scenes from the show and scenes from the book! But one thing remains the same, the Stackhouses, they are still as stupid as ever. For some reason I could tolerate their stupidity a bit better with the show than with the book... Or it could be that their TSTL (too stupid to live) schtik is not as glaringly obvious in the show as oppose to the books...

The world building is marvellous as per usual, but I did not like the ending too much. It ended the main plot in the story but left too much hanging. I know, I know, marketing ploy... but I find it just a little annoying with this book. However, this is also the book which introduced us to Alcide Herveaux! Though Alcide in the book is not as hot as Joe Manganiello. So that's a score in favour of the show! On top of that, we see a little bit more Sookie-Eric interaction which shows us an Eric who is an anti-hero we could love. This notches up the intrigue of the love triangle between Sookie, Eric, and Bill which I believe will keep fans hooked.

Overall, this book is not too bad, however I am just not very tolerant of Sookie's TSTL act so I'd give this book a 3 out of 5.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story Telling Quality = 4
World Building = 5
Character Development = 3
Plot = 3.5
Pace = N/A
Story Itself = 4
Ending = 3
Narration = 4.5

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 cherries


Books In This Series: