BEA'S BOOK NOOK "I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once." C. S. Lewis “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” ― Oscar Wilde

Showing posts with label ARC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ARC. Show all posts

Saturday, April 5, 2014

ARC Review of Sea of Shadows by Kelley Armstrong

Publisher: HarperCollins
Series: Age of Legends #1 
Format Read: eGalley
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: April 8, 2014
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | OmniLit* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

In the Forest of the Dead, where the empire’s worst criminals are exiled, twin sisters Moria and Ashyn are charged with a dangerous task. For they are the Keeper and the Seeker, and each year they must quiet the enraged souls of the damned.

Only this year, the souls will not be quieted.

Ambushed and separated by an ancient evil, the sisters’ journey to find each other sends them far from the only home they’ve ever known. Accompanied by a stubborn imperial guard and a dashing condemned thief, the girls cross a once-empty wasteland, now filled with reawakened monsters of legend, as they travel to warn the emperor. But a terrible secret awaits them at court—one that will alter the balance of their world forever.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

ARC Review of Secretariat Reborn by Susan Klaus

Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Format Read: eGalley
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date:
Buying Links: Amazon*  | Book Depository* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate link; the blog receives a small commission for purchases made through this link.

Blurb from goodreads:

Christian Roberts, lanky, blond, and twenty-five-years-old, rents out small sailboats on Sarasota Bay. His peaceful life is shattered when he accepts a thoroughbred colt from his estranged, dying father, an Ocala horse trainer. 

When Christian promises his father that he'll race the colt, he's plunged into the underworld of horse racing. To navigate his way he naively hires Ed Price, a heartless Miami trainer. And when his colt shows potential -- a surprising resemblance to Secretariat -- a dubious wealthy sheik wants to buy him, but Christian vows to keep his promise to his father. With a sizable debt still owed on the horse, Christian is forced to take out a loan, his only recourse, Vince, a New York mobster. If the money is not repaid on time, Christian's life and that of Allie, his colt's trainer, are threatened. To add to his rollercoaster of troubles, he faces fraud charges since his father illegally registered the colt, and he is being stalked by a psychotic ex-girlfriend.


Tuesday, September 17, 2013

ARC Review of Four Summoner's Tales by Kelley Armstrong, Christopher Golden, David Liss, and Jonathan Maberry

Publisher: Gallery Books
Format Read: eGalley
Source: The publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: September 17, 2013
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; clicking & purchasing results in a small commission for the blog.

Blurb from goodreads:

Four terror-inducing novellas from acclaimed bestselling authors Kelley Armstrong, David Liss, Christopher Golden, and Jonathan Maberry beginning with the premise: “A stranger comes to town, offering to raise the townsfolk’s dearly departed from the dead—for a price.”

In Kelley Armstrong’s “Suffer the Children,” an acute diphtheria outbreak kills most of the children in an isolated village in nineteen-century Ontario. Then a stranger arrives and offers to bring the children back to life. He wants money, of course, an extravagant sum, but more importantly, but for each child resurrected, one villager must voluntarily offer his life...  


In David Liss’s “A Bad Season for Necromancy,” a con man on the margins of eighteenth-century British society discovers a book that reveals the method for bringing the dead back to life. After considering just how far he would go to avoid bringing his violent father back, he realizes the real value of this book. Instead of getting people to pay him to revive their departed, he will get people to pay him not to...

In “Pipers” by Christopher Golden, the Texas Border Volunteers wage a private war against drug smuggling by Mexican cartels in a modern-day South Texas town, complete with an indestructible army of the risen dead...

In “Alive Day” by Jonathan Maberry, a US Army sergeant must dive into the underworld of modern-day Afghanistan to try and barter for the release of his team, never dreaming of the horrors that await him...

Monday, September 9, 2013

ARC Review of Cursed by S.J. Harper

Publisher: ROC Urban Fantasy
Series: Fallen Siren #1
Format Read: Print ARC
Source: From the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: October 1, 2013
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; clicking & purchasing results in a small commission for the blog.

Blurb from goodreads:

Meet FBI Agents Emma Monroe and Zack Armstrong.
She's cursed. He's damned. Together, they make one hell of a team.


Emma Monroe is a Siren, cursed by the gods and bound to earth to atone for an ancient failure. She’s had many names and many lives, but only one mission: redemption. Now that she works missing persons cases for the FBI, it could be just a rescue away. Unless her new partner leads her astray.
Special Agent Zack Armstrong just transferred into the San Diego Field Office. He’s a werewolf, doing his best to beat back the demons from his dark and dangerous past. As a former Black Ops sniper, he’s taken enough lives. Now he’s doing penance by saving them.
Emma and Zack’s very first case draws them deep into the realm of the paranormal, and forces them to use their own supernatural abilities. But that leaves each of them vulnerable, and there are lines partners should not cross. As secrets are revealed and more women go missing, one thing becomes clear: as they race to save the victims, Emma and Zack risk losing themselves.


Thursday, August 29, 2013

ARC Review: CarolKat Reviews Revealing Us by Lisa Renee Jones

Publisher: Gallery Books
Format Read: Print ARC
Series: Inside Out #3
Source: The publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: September 10, 2013
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate link; clicking & purchasing results in a small commission for the blog.

Blurb from goodreads:

The third installment in the sexy Inside Out erotic romance series—in the seductive tradition of Fifty Shades of Grey.

You've discovered Rebecca's secrets. You've discovered Sara's secrets. Now Sara will discover "his" deepest, darkest secrets...but will those secrets bind them together--or tear them apart?


Thursday, June 27, 2013

Review of Hunted by Kevin Hearne

Publisher: Del Rey
Series: The Iron Druid #6
Format Read: eGalley
Source: From the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Release Date: June 25, 2013
Buying Links:  Barnes & Noble | Amazon* | The Book Depository*
* affiliate links; clicking & purchasing results in a small commission for the blog.

Blurb from goodreads:
*CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR EARLIER BOOKS*


 
For a two-thousand-year-old Druid, Atticus O’Sullivan is a pretty fast runner. Good thing, because he’s being chased by not one but two goddesses of the hunt—Artemis and Diana—for messing with one of their own. Dodging their slings and arrows, Atticus, Granuaile, and his wolfhound Oberon are making a mad dash across modern-day Europe to seek help from a friend of the Tuatha Dé Danann. His usual magical option of shifting planes is blocked, so instead of playing hide-and-seek, the game plan is . . . run like hell.
Crashing the pantheon marathon is the Norse god Loki. Killing Atticus is the only loose end he needs to tie up before unleashing Ragnarok—AKA the Apocalypse. Atticus and Granuaile have to outfox the Olympians and contain the god of mischief if they want to go on living—and still have a world to live in. 

Friday, March 8, 2013

Excerpt & ARC Review of Along Came Trouble by Ruthie Knox

Publisher: Loveswept
Series: Camelot #2
Format Read: eARC
Release Date: March 11, 2013
Buying Links:  Amazon   Barnes & Noble 

Book Blurb:
Ruthie Knox’s Camelot series continues in this sizzling eBook original novel, featuring two headstrong souls who bump heads—and bodies—as temptation and lust bring nothing but delicious trouble.
An accomplished lawyer and driven single mother, Ellen Callahan isn’t looking for any help. She’s doing just fine on her own. So Ellen’s more than a little peeved when her brother, an international pop star, hires a security guard to protect her from a prying press that will stop at nothing to dig up dirt on him. But when the tanned and toned Caleb Clark shows up at her door, Ellen might just have to plead the fifth.

Back home after a deployment in Iraq and looking for work as a civilian, Caleb signs on as Ellen’s bodyguard. After combat in the hot desert sun, this job should be a breeze. But guarding the willful beauty is harder than he imagined—and Caleb can’t resist the temptation to mix business with pleasure. With their desires growing more undeniable by the day, Ellen and Caleb give in to an evening of steamy passion. But will they ever be able to share more than just a one-night stand? 

Includes a special message from the editor, as well as excerpts from these Loveswept titles: How to Misbehave, Flirting with Disaster, and About Last Night.

Bea's thoughts:

This book made me laugh almost as much as "How to Misbehave" did. I have decided that it simply isn't a good idea to read Knox's books while in the naproom at school. The woman makes me laugh so hard I cough up a lung. That's tolerable, the darn things are diseased and defective anyway, but heaven help me if I wake up the kids. :P Now, it's not that "Along Came Trouble" is a comedy, it's definitely not. But Knox doesn't forget to use humor in her stories and her characters have a sense of humor. It's a quality I appreciate, adding depth and interest to her stories.

The action in this story takes place in a fairly short time frame, about a week or so, and that gave me pause. Caleb and Ellen jumped in the sack and fell in love very quickly, it just seemed unlikely, especially given Ellen's problems with her ex. Caleb was the first man she was involved with since the divorce and while she squawked a lot about what she did and didn't want, her follow through was minimal. Ellen's ex, Richard, is very much a stereotype, which was disappointing. Caleb struck me as overly pushy at first, and he was pushy, but as we got more inside his head, I didn't mind as much. I could understand his perspective even when I disagreed. Both Caleb and Ellen were stubborn, with Caleb the more flexible of the two. Ellen was ferociously protective of her independence and her home; she's downright territorial about her home and its importance, something Caleb never quite understood, but it and her independence drove many of her actions:
She'd built herself a fortress on Burgess Street in Camelot, Ohio, and stalked around the battlements, proud and independent. Nobody was going to help her, because she'd finally figured out how to be sufficient all by herself.
After a lifetime of depending on people, it had felt so good to be enough that she'd turned it into a vice. Independent Ellen didn't believe in love. She didn't need romance. And she didn't recognize the best thing that had ever happened to her until she'd driven him away.

There are actually two love stories interwoven in the book: the predominant love story with Caleb and Ellen, and then Ellen's brother Jamie and her next door neighbor Carly. I was rooting for both couples, enjoyed both their stories. Carly and Jamie's nicknames for Carly's unborn baby, Wombat and Shrimp, made me laugh. I really liked Carly's Nana; she is a hoot and a strong character in her own right.

Despite my niggles with the book, I enjoyed the characters and cared what happened. Plus there are Johnny Cash references. :) Knox spins a story that keeps you hooked. The story kept me interested, and up late reading, and I need to get my hands on the next book. If you haven't started this series, go get them now. Although this is the second book, you can easily read it as a stand alone.

I received an e-galley from the publisher for review.

***************************************************************************** 

Thanks to Ruthie, I have an excerpt for you today. Grab a drink, get comfy and read on!

I’m here today to talk about Along Came Trouble, my latest novel (and longest so far). Out next week from Loveswept (Random House), it’s the second story in my Camelot series. Bea said of the first story in the series, the novella How ToMisbehave, I loved this, BUY IT!” Here’s hoping this one meets with as much enthusiasm!



I suppose I have to admit right up front that Along Came Trouble is a bodyguard book. But I think of it as a book that’s really about what happens when a woman meets the right man at the wrong time and has to decide how much of herself to give him when she doesn’t feel like she’s got any self to spare. And most of all it’s about how hard it is to find a balance between dependence, independence, and interdependence—and how love can lift our burdens and help us become better versions of ourselves, if we are brave enough to let it.



In this little snippet, the heroine, Ellen, is talking to her brother, Jamie. He’s a pop star (think Justin Timberlake), and on his most recent visits to sleepy Camelot, Ohio, where Ellen lives, he’s gotten involved with her neighbor, Carly. This ended badly, as anyone but Jamie might have predicted it would. Just moments before, Ellen met her own romantic interest—bodyguard Caleb—and promptly fired him.



“So I’m guessing a guy showed up, and you sent him packing?” Jamie asked.

Was that the best way to summarize the morning’s events? It left out Weasel Face, the assault-by-tea, Caleb’s arrival, Caleb’s smile, Caleb’s biceps . . . “More or less. There was another photographer out there.”
His eyebrows drew together. “Sorry, Ellen.”
“Not your fault.”
It was, but she had a hard time holding the press against Jamie for more than a couple of minutes at a time. He’d only ever wanted to sing. The rest of this had come to him accidentally, all part of the celebrity package.
Plus, he couldn’t help it that somebody local had sold a cell-phone shot of him and Carly to the tabloids. He’d been far more upset about that than Ellen had. After the picture hit the Internet, he’d picked a pointless fight with Carly that ended in their breakup and his retreat to California. A few hours after his plane lifted off, the first photographer had landed on Ellen’s lawn.
“Anyway,” she said, “this security guy showed up and ran off the photographer, and he talked me into letting him put a car out on the cul-de-sac. So you got your wish.”
“Good. I thought for sure you’d fire him on the spot.”
I tried that. But it hadn’t worked, and she still wasn’t quite sure why. The whoa thing had distracted her. That, and the appeal of not having to worry about keeping one eye out the window at all times. “I still could.”
“Don’t, okay? It’s bad enough that I can’t be there. I feel better knowing somebody’s watching out for you guys and Carly.”
“I’m not letting him within ten feet of my house.”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Just work with him as much as you can stand to. And be nice, huh? It’s not his fault you’re insanely touchy about that house.”
“I’m not—”
Jamie raised an eyebrow, and she gave it up without even finishing the sentence. She was insanely touchy about her house. But it wasn’t as though she hadn’t earned the right to be.
This house was the prize she’d rescued from the wreckage of her marriage. It was where she’d learned independence, where she raised her son, and she refused to cower behind her own doors, locked down for fear of a few lowlifes with cameras. She couldn’t stand the idea of bodyguards and alarm codes, gates and barricades messing with her peace. Not when it had taken her so long to find it.
“‘Insane’ is a strong word,” she said. “And I’m almost always nice.”
“You’re always nice to me and Henry, but you’re basically a bitch for a living.”
“That’s different. That’s professional bitchiness, and I get paid good money for it.”


 





About Ruthie

Ruthie Knox graduated from Grinnell College as an English and history double major and went on to earn a Ph.D. in modern British history that she’s put to remarkably little use. She debuted as a romance novelist with Ride with Me—probably the only existing cross-country bicycling love story yet to be penned—and followed it up with About Last Night, which features a sizzling British banker hero with the unlikely name of Neville. Other publications include Room at the Inn (a Christmas novella) and How To Misbehave, book 1 in the Camelot series. She moonlights as a mother, Tweets incessantly, and bakes a mean focaccia.



Sunday, September 30, 2012

ARC Review of Ashen Winter by Mike Mullin

Publisher: Tanglewood Press
Series: Ashfall #2
Release Date: October 16, 2012
Buying Links:  Amazon   Barnes & Noble   The Book Depository   Tanglewood Press


Book Blurb (from goodreads):

It’s been over six months since the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Alex and Darla have been staying with Alex’s relatives, trying to cope with the new reality of the primitive world so vividly portrayed in Ashfall, the first book in this series. It’s also been six months of waiting for Alex’s parents to return from Iowa. Alex and Darla decide they can wait no longer and must retrace their journey into Iowa to find and bring back Alex’s parents to the tenuous safety of Illinois. But the landscape they cross is even more perilous than before, with life-and-death battles for food and power between the remaining communities. When the unthinkable happens, Alex must find new reserves of strength and determination to survive.

Reviewed By: Bea

*May contain spoilers for Ashfall*


Bea's Thoughts:


Last fall I read and enjoyed the first book in this series, Ashfall. It was a compelling story that kept me up until 3AM. I knew I had to read Ashen Winter and it was worth the wait. I worried that it wouldn't be as good the first book, that Mullin wouldn't be able to sustain the story and keep it interesting and well-told. I didn't give him enough credit. *bashes self on head*

I started the book early in the day which was a good thing because it is long, 576 pages. A few times it dragged, some scenes could have been shortened in my opinion, but overall I wouldn't change a thing about this book. It starts shortly after Ashfall ended; Alex is determined to go look for his parents while Darla thinks they should stay where they are but insists on accompanying him. Naturally, the search doesn't go as planned, there are many things that go wrong, a few that go right and even a reunion or two along the way. At times I had to remind myself that Alex was only sixteen; he was impulsive, emotional and reactive. But that's part of the beauty of Mullin's writing; I got so caught up in the story telling and what was happening that I'd be getting upset with Alex and mentally fussing at him not to do this or to please do that just as if he were a real person. Although Alex has matured a great deal during the months since the eruption, he's still young and still sometimes reckless.  

The story grips you and makes you feel what it must be like to be in Alex and Darla's circumstances. Mullin did a lot of research and it shows but he doesn't hit you over the head with it, it's part of the story. It's amazing, detailed, realistic world building. I particularly appreciated his depiction of someone with autism; it was honest, respectful, and realistic. That character is a good addition to the story and I hope to see more of him in the next book. In addition to all of the technical details that contribute to the reader feeling like they are there, Mullin doesn't forget about the emotional aspects. You feel the cold and hunger, the desperation to survive, and ultimately, the costs of the choices we make. Every choice has a consequence, some positive, some negative, some neutral, but there is always a reaction and sometimes there are no good choices or answers. Alex learned that in Ashfall, but it gets brutally reinforced in this book. It's not a happy, easy, or comfortable book. But is is, I believe, an honest look at survival and the choices we make. There's currently one more book left in the series but the world Mullin has created could easily support an entire multi-book series, with or without Alex and Darla.

If you want a compelling, engaging, well-told story that makes you both think and feel, then you want to read Ashen Winter.



I received an eARC from the publisher.