Tour Stop: The Edge of Never by J.A. Redmerski

Title: The Edge of Never

Author: J.A. Redmerski

Release date: Nov. 15, 2012

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Age Group: New Adult

Event organized by: AToMR Tours

Book Description:

Twenty-year-old Camryn Bennett had always been one to think out-of-the-box, who knew she wanted something more in life than following the same repetitive patterns and growing old with the same repetitive life story. And she thought that her life was going in the right direction until everything fell apart.

Determined not to dwell on the negative and push forward, Camryn is set to move in with her best friend and plans to start a new job. But after an unexpected night at the hottest club in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, she makes the ultimate decision to leave the only life she’s ever known, far behind.

With a purse, a cell phone and a small bag with a few necessities, Camryn, with absolutely no direction or purpose boards a Greyhound bus alone and sets out to find herself. What she finds is a guy named Andrew Parrish, someone not so very different from her and who harbors his own dark secrets. But Camryn swore never to let down her walls again. And she vowed never to fall in love.

But with Andrew, Camryn finds herself doing a lot of things she never thought she’d do. He shows her what it’s really like to live out-of-the-box and to give in to her deepest, darkest desires. On their sporadic road-trip he becomes the center of her exciting and daring new life, pulling love and lust and emotion out of her in ways she never imagined possible. But will Andrew’s dark secret push them inseparably together, or tear them completely apart?

Review: Inescapable (The Premonition #1) by Amy A. Bartol

Book: Inescapable (The Premonition #1)

Author: Amy A. Bartol

Published: August 2011

My Rating: 5/5

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Book Description:

My name is Evie Claremont and this was to be the making of me–my freshman year of college. I had been hoping that once I had arrived on Crestwood’s campus, the nightmare that I’ve been having would go away. It hasn’t.

I may be an inexperienced seventeen-year-old, but I’m grounded…sane. Since meeting sophomore Reed Wellington, however, nothing makes any sense. Whenever he is near, I feel an attraction to him–a magnetic kind of force pulling me towards him. I know what you’re thinking…that sounds fairly awesome. Yeah, it would–if he liked me, but Reed acts as if I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to Crestwood…or him. But, get this, for some reason every time I turn around he’s there, barging into my life.

What is the secret he is keeping from me? I’m hoping that it is anything but what I expect: that he is not exactly normal…and neither am I. So maybe Crestwood won’t be the making of me, but it could be the breaking of me. I have been left to wonder if the dark future my dream is foretelling is…inescapable.

My Review:

I don’t know whether to scream in happiness or to cry right now. I just finished reading Inescapable and I’m not so sure if it is wise of me to write a review quiet so soon. I probably need to take a few deep breaths, because really, my head is swimming. What have you done to me Amy A. Bartol?

Wow. Where to start, huh?

Review: Second Kiss by Natalie Palmer

Book: Second Kiss

Author: Natalie Palmer

Published: November 2010

My Rating: 5/5

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Book Description:

Gemma Mitchell is a normal girl who somehow gets herself into abnormally embarrassing circumstances. And while she thinks she’s the biggest loser in school because of them, there are a few people in her life who would disagree. One of those people is her best friend, Jess Tyler, who is opposite to her in every way. He’s popular, good looking, athletic, and intelligent, and he can’t get enough of Gemma. But while Gemma is dealing with problems like wrong locker combinations and Valentine’s Day dances, Jess is living in a world of serious issues that are foreign to Gemma, until she realizes that he’s holding on to her for dear life.

Humorous and true to life, Second Kiss is an entertaining saga about a boy and girl who find that their lives have a lot more meaning once they have shared them with each other.

My Review:

Second Kiss is a story about how love and friendship can help you get through the hardest times of your life.

Review: On the Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves

Book: On the Island

Author: Tracey Garvis-Graves

Published: October 2011

My Rating: 5/5

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Book Description:

When thirty-year-old English teacher Anna Emerson is offered a job tutoring T.J. Callahan at his family’s summer rental in the Maldives, she accepts without hesitation; a working vacation on a tropical island trumps the library any day. T.J. Callahan has no desire to leave town, not that anyone asked him. He’s almost seventeen and if having cancer wasn’t bad enough, now he has to spend his first summer in remission with his family – and a stack of overdue assignments – instead of his friends.

Anna and T.J. are en route to join T.J.’s family in the Maldives when the pilot of their seaplane suffers a fatal heart attack and crash-lands in the Indian Ocean. Adrift in shark-infested waters, their life jackets keep them afloat until they make it to the shore of an uninhabited island.

Now Anna and T.J. just want to survive and they must work together to obtain water, food, fire, and shelter. Their basic needs might be met but as the days turn to weeks, and then months, the castaways encounter plenty of other obstacles, including violent tropical storms, the many dangers lurking in the sea, and the possibility that T.J.’s cancer could return. As T.J. celebrates yet another birthday on the island, Anna begins to wonder if the biggest challenge of all might be living with a boy who is gradually becoming a man.

My Review:

Oh my god! What a book! I think I’ll never quite recovered from the emotional roller-coaster this book provided. A forever favorite, that’s for sure.

I’ve wanted to start this book since the moment I found it, but you know how it is. Life isn’t always on our side, I ended up putting it down for a little while, but I’m so glad I read it now. So glad! I was hooked since the very first chapter when we meet 16-year-old T.J, and his tutor 30-year-old English teacher Anna.

Review: What I Didn’t Say by Keary Taylor

Book: What I Didn’t Say

Author:  Keary Taylor

Published: April 2012

My Rating: 4/5

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Book Description:

Getting drunk homecoming night your senior year is never a good idea, but Jake Hayes never expected it all to end with a car crash and a t-post embedded in his throat.

His biggest regret about it all? What he never said to Samantha Shay. He’s been in love with her for years and never had the guts to tell her. Now it’s too late. Because after that night, Jake will never be able to talk again.

When Jake returns to his small island home, population 5,000, he’ll have to learn how to deal with being mute. He also finds that his family isn’t limited to his six brothers and sisters, that sometimes an entire island is watching out for you. And when he gets the chance to spend more time with Samantha, she’ll help him learn that not being able to talk isn’t the worst thing that could ever happen to you. Maybe, if she’ll let him, Jake will finally tell her what he didn’t say before, even if he can’t actually say it.

My Review:

What I Didn’t Say was a touching, lovely book, that I’m completely recommending. It makes you think, in a very what-have-I-done-with-my-life-so-far kind of way. It makes you reflect –or at least it did me –and appreciate what you have, because there is someone else out there that doesn’t.

Review: Notes from the Blender by Trish Cook & Brendan Halpin

Book: Notes from the Blender

Author:  Trish Cook & Brendan Halpin

Published: May 2011

My Rating: 4/5

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Book Description:

Declan loves death metal–particularly from Finland. And video games–violent ones. And internet porn–any kind, really. He goes to school with Neilly Foster and spends most of his classroom time wondering what it might be like to know her, to talk to her, maybe even to graze against her sweater in the hallway. Neilly is an accomplished gymnast, naturally beautiful, and a constant presence at all the best parties (to which Declan is never invited). She’s the queen of cool, the princess of poker face, and her rule is uncontested– or it was until today, when she’s dumped by her boyfriend, betrayed by her former BFF Lulu, and then informed she’s getting a new brother–of the freaky fellow classmate variety. Declan’s dad is marrying Neilly’s mom. Soon. Which means they’ll be moving in together.

My Review:

Eeek!

I just finished reading Notes from the Blender and I’m grinning so hard my cheeks hurt and I’m actually tearing up too. Damn, it was good.

In Notes from the Blender we follow Declan and Neilly.

Declan is a teenage boy obsessed with metal music, he wears black all the time, he plays way too many video games and is a little bit of a pervert. In a completely hilarious way. He doesn’t have many friends, and that probably has more to do with his choices than with him being socially awkward, because I never felt he was. Other than making sex jokes all the time. Okay, so maybe, just maybe he was. A little.

Neilly is in the popular crowd. She has a popular boyfriend, a best friend, goes to lots of parties. She’s beautiful and you know, the usual. She is a little self-centered too, but we forgive her.

So how do this two completely different people get mixed up together? Easy, get his dad to knock her mom up and you’re set.

Yes. So now Dec’s dad is marring Neilly’s mom. And they are having a little “devil spawn.” Their lives ger turned upside down. New house, new family, new people, new everything. Which means they are moving in together. And above it all Neilly just lost her best friend and her boyfriend all in the same day. And Dec can’t stop having not-so-sisterly-thoughts about Neilly, or feeling like his father is trying to replace his mother (who died in a car accident when he was nine) and/or him.

Notes from the Blender was hilarious. I don’t come across many books that make me laugh out loud like this, actually I think only one book made me actually laugh-laugh, if you know what I mean? And this one did too, not to that extent, but I found myself grinning most of the time. Dec is incredibly hilarious with his inappropriate comments and all.

“A bond that he will always treasure. I was being raised by a human greeting card.”

But, surprising enough, it actually made me cry too. I know, what a mess! But I couldn’t help but feel for Dec so much! He was used to being just him and his dad and then all of a sudden he’s having a stepmother, and two step-sisters (with one yet to be born)? It was understandable he would miss his mother, and I hurt for him.

Notes from the Blender is told from both Dec and Neilly’s point of view, so you get to understand and feel for these two characters, and see how they grow and learn to accept each other and what life was throwing at them. I don’t know if I should classify this as a light read, given it made me cry, but it’s more on the humor side, I assure you. Dec just got to me a little more than it should have, probably.

“I had a terrible epiphany at that moment. I had thought that I didn’t understand girls because I never got near them, but here I was, sitting in Neilly Foster’s kitchen eating ice cream with her, and I had no fucking idea what made her mind work. So it wasn’t proximity that was the problem. It was that they were fundamentally unknowable.”

[ARC] Review: Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz

Book: Teeth

Author:  Hannah Moskowitz

Expected publication: January 1st 2013

My Rating: 4.5/5

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Book Description:

Be careful what you believe in.

Rudy’s life is flipped upside-down when his family moves to a remote island in a last attempt to save his sick younger brother. With nothing to do but worry, Rudy sinks deeper and deeper into loneliness and lies awake at night listening to the screams of the ocean beneath his family’s rickety house.

Then he meets Diana, who makes him wonder what he even knows about love, and Teeth, who makes him question what he knows about anything. Rudy can’t remember the last time he felt so connected to someone, but being friends with Teeth is more than a little bit complicated. He soon learns that Teeth has terrible secrets. Violent secrets. Secrets that will force Rudy to choose between his own happiness and his brother’s life.

My Review:

I went into this book pretty much blind, I didn’t really know what to expect. I hadn’t read any review before I requested this book from Edelweiss; I was going by the description, which didn’t give much away, not much of what the book is actually about, not really. But then my request got accepted (which surprised me a lot, by the way) and I just dove right into it. I didn’t want to spoil myself by reading reviews and for once, I wanted a book to really surprise me.

And boy, did it work!

I was told a lot about Hannah Moskowitz’s writing, and how amazing and real it is. Let me tell to those that never read anything by her –like I was before Teeth –it’s true. Her writing is amazing, and it was what kept me going and helped me get past my annoyance with the formatting of this ARC (and don’t worry, even if the writing were bad this would not have affected my review, I assure you. It was an ARC after all!).

Review: Ceaseless (Existence Trilogy #3) by Abbi Glines

Book: Ceaseless (Existence Trilogy #3)

Author:  Abbi Glines

Published: September 2012

My Rating: 4/5

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[Existence – Book #1 Review]

[Predestined – Book #2 Review]

Book Description:

Can he make her fall in love with him… again?

When Pagan Moore proved worthy of Death’s devotion, he was given the gift of getting to keep her.

But Dank was never promised that Pagan would keep him.

When a soul is created, so is its mate. In every lifetime those souls find each other. They complete the other’s destiny. It’s time for Pagan’s soul to choose if she truly wants an eternity at Death’s side or if she wants the mate created just for her.

Dank didn’t think he had to worry about her choice. He knew where her heart belonged. Until he realized that every kiss, every touch, every moment of their time together would be washed from her memories. He would have to win her heart all over again and prove to her soul that he was where she belonged.

If only her soul’s mate wasn’t right there standing in his way.

My Review:

[Note: If you haven’t read the first book in the series, be warned. You might find unavoidable spoilers.]

It’s over! I think I’m sad that this series is over already. I first read Existence on May of this year, it’s been only four months and it’s over.

It’s the first series I’ve completed in a long time. If I look back I think it’s the first series I complete since Twilight, which is saying a lot (wait, there was also Fifty Shades, but I’d rather forget about that one). I’ve started lots and lots of series since then, but this is the only one I’ve had the courage to actually finish.

I think it’s safe to say now, that the Existence Trilogy is one of my favorite series. And Ceaseless was an amazing end to it. It was –dare I say –pretty prefect.

Review: Predestined (Existence Trilogy #2) by Abbi Glines

Book: Predestined (Existence Trilogy #2)

Author:  Abbi Glines

Published: March 2012

My Rating: 4/5

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[Existence – Book #1 Review]

Book Description:

You would think after helping save her boyfriend from an eternity in Hell that things would go back to normal. Well, as normal as life can be when you can see souls and your boyfriend is Death. But for Pagan Moore, things are just getting weirder.

The high school quarterback and reigning heartthrob, Leif Montgomery, is missing. While the town is in a frenzy of worry, Pagan is a nervous wreck for other reasons. Apparently good ‘ol Leif isn’t your average teenage boy. He isn’t even human. According to Death, Leif doesn’t have a soul. The quarterback may have skipped town but he’s still showing up in Pagan’s dreams… uninvited.

Dank has known from the beginning Leif wasn’t human. But he hadn’t worried about a simple soulless creature. Now, he realizes he made a grave mistake. Pagan’s soul has been marked since birth as a restitution, to a spirit so dark not even Death walks near it. Dank knows saving Pagan’s soul won’t be easy but Pagan is his. And he’s already proven he’ll defy Heaven to keep her. If Hell wants a piece of him too, then bring it on.

My Review:

[Note: If you haven’t read the first book in the series, be warned. You might find unavoidable spoilers.]

Predestined is the amazing follow-up to Existence. It starts (sort of) were we stopped in Existence… to the knowledge that Leif is not exactly human. Okay, he’s not human. Period.

So what is he? We learn the answer to this question pretty early in the book. As a matter of fact, we learn the answer to this question in the prologue. So you don’t have to go on suffering for long, if that was what was keeping you from reading this book, like in my case. I’m a bit of a chicken sometimes. Why yes, I admit it.

[ARC] Review: Transcend by Christine Fonseca

Book: Transcend

Author:  Christine Fonseca

Expected publication: September 18th 2012

My Rating: 5/5

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Book Description:

All seventeen-year-old composer Ien Montgomery desires is an escape from his family’s rigid expectations for his life; someone to inspire his music. When he meets a beautiful violin-prodigy, Kiera McDougal, his life music takes on new life. With her, he imagines a future outside of his parents’ control. That is, until a horrible accident tears them apart.

Sent to die in a sanatorium, Ien’s obsession for Kiera grows unbearable. Tortured by thoughts he can’t escape and the truth of his monstrous disfigurement, he flees, desperate to exact revenge on the people that ruined his life – his parents. But, vengeance is empty. Betrayed by those closest to him, Ien discovers that the price for his happiness may be his sanity.

My Review:

I honestly don’t know where to begin, I knew when I finished reading it over a week ago that this was going to be a hard review to write, and I was right, I’m still somewhat overwhelmed.

I know I had been eagerly waiting to read this book for months, and though I’m not completely sure just what I expected, I’m so very happy to say that I was not disappointed, not in the slightest. Not even a little bit.

I fell in love with the cover instantly, and after reading the description all I knew was that I had to read it. And then I won a signed copy (thank you Christine!) and there was no stopping my eagerness.

I still am…

And now to the review!