All Books Considered

 "Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine , that spotlights upcoming releases that you are eagerly anticipating. Today, I am waiting on:   Velvet Undercover by Teri Brown ! From Goodreads : Samantha Donaldson’s family has always done its duty for the British Crown. In the midst of World War I, seventeen-year-old Sam follows in their footsteps, serving her country from the homefront as a Girl Guide and messenger for the intelligence organization MI5. After her father disappears on a diplomatic mission, she continues their studies of languages, high-level mathematics, and complex puzzles and codes, hoping to make him proud. When Sam is asked to join the famed women’s spy group La Dame Blanche she’s torn—this could be the adventure she’s dreamed of, but how can she abandon her mother, who has already lost a husband to the war? But when her handlers reveal shocking news, Sam realizes there’s no way she can refuse the e...

Top Ten Tuesday  is hosted by the fab ladies at  The Broke and the Bookish ! What are the best books you've read so far this year?   I have to give a shout-out to Rachel @ Waves of Fiction for recommending The Others series by Anne Bishop to me on my Rec' Me Something Good post last week.  I've only read the first book so far (above) but I am hooked!!

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith Blurb from Goodreads : Lucy and Owen meet somewhere between the tenth and eleventh floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they're rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father. Lucy and Owen's relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and -- finally -- a reunion in the city where they first met. A carefully charted map of a long-distance relationship, Jennifer E. Smith's new novel shows that the center of the world isn't necessarily a place. It can be a person, too. My Review:   It really is my own fault for readi...

 "Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine , that spotlights upcoming releases that you are eagerly anticipating. Today, I am waiting on:   Drowning Is Inevitable by Shalanda Stanley ! From Goodreads : "A literary knockout with the loudest of beating hearts."  John Corey Whaley, Printz Award winner of Where Things Come Back Olivia has spent her whole life struggling to escape her dead mother’s shadow. But when her father can’t even look at her because Olivia reminds him of her mother, and her grandmother mistakenly calls her “Lillian,”  shaking a reputation she didn’t ask for is next to impossible. Olivia is used to leaning on her best friend, Jamie; her handsome but hot-tempered boyfriend, Max; and their wild-child friend, Maggie, for the reality check that her small Louisiana town can’t provide. But when a terrible fight between Jamie and his father turns deadly, all Olivia can think to do is grab her...

So last week one of my absolute favorite bloggers,  Nereyda at Mostly YA Obsessed , posted her first Rec Me Something Good , in which she asked for recommendations for fun (i.e. no drama) NA reads.  The idea is simple but perfect -- you describe the type of book you're in the mood to read (based on genre, author, etc.) as well as books you've previously read and enjoyed (or not enjoyed) in that genre, etc. and let your readers recommend something they think you will like based on the category!  I have been in the mood for something specific so I am (with permission) stealing this idea from Nereyda so you can recommend something good to me today! What I’m looking for: I am in the mood to start a series in which the characters do not get together in the span of one book -- so, a true series not the new "series" that everyone seems to be writing that are truly just a string of books about every character under the sun from the first book (I'm looking at you...

That Chesapeake Summer (Chesapeake Diaries #9) by Mariah Stewart Blurb from Goodreads : Jamie Valentine is the wildly successful author of self-help books advocating transparency in every relationship. But when her widowed mother passes away unexpectedly, Jamie discovers her own life has been based on a lie. Angry and deeply betrayed, she sets out to find the truth—which may be in a small town on the Chesapeake Bay. Cutting her most recent book tour short, Jamie books a room at the Inn at Sinclair’s Point, just outside St. Dennis. The death of Daniel Sinclair’s father forced him to take over the family inn, and his wife’s death left him a single parent of two children, so there’s little room for anything else in his life. His lovely new guest is intriguing, though, and he’s curious about the secret she’s clearly hiding. But in the end, Jamie and Dan could discover the greatest truth of all: that the search for one thing just might lead to...

After Hours by Claire Kennedy Blurb from Goodreads : Isa, Xavi, Peter, and Finn know that a job at the high-end Waterside Cafe isn't just about waiting tables. It's about the gossip, the hook-ups, the after-hours parties and, most of all, it's about Tips. Tips--the high-stakes game based on dares. Whoever completes the most dares wins the collected money. A sum that could change a wasted summer into a Summer to Remember. Isa is the new girl with an embarrassing secret, and as long as she stays on top of her game, she sees no reason why anyone could ever find out. Xavi will do anything for the money...absolutely anything. Peter, Xavi's stepbrother, has been in love with her for years, and he thinks the game is the perfect time to confess his feelings. Finn is in the game just for the thrill. He has enough tips coming in to keep him happy...even if those tips come with some conditions. From seduction to stealing to t...

The Knockoff by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza Blurb from Goodreads : An outrageously stylish, wickedly funny novel of fashion in the digital age, The Knockoff is the story of Imogen Tate, editor in chief of Glossy magazine, who finds her twentysomething former assistant Eve Morton plotting to knock Imogen off her pedestal, take over her job, and reduce the magazine, famous for its lavish 768-page September issue, into an app. When Imogen returns to work at Glossy after six months away, she can barely recognize her own magazine. Eve, fresh out of Harvard Business School, has fired “the gray hairs,” put the managing editor in a supply closet, stopped using the landlines, and hired a bevy of manicured and questionably attired underlings who text and tweet their way through meetings. Imogen, darling of the fashion world, may have Alexander Wang and Diane von Furstenberg on speed dial, but she can’t tell Facebook from Foursquare and once got her iPho...

 "Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine , that spotlights upcoming releases that you are eagerly anticipating. Today, I am waiting on:   The Fixer (The Fixer #1) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes ! From Goodreads : When sixteen-year-old Tess Kendrick is sent to live with her older sister, Ivy, she has no idea that the infamous Ivy Kendrick is Washington D.C.'s #1 “fixer,” known for making politicians' scandals go away for a price. No sooner does Tess enroll at Hardwicke Academy than she unwittingly follows in her sister's footsteps and becomes D.C.'s premier high school fixer, solving problems for elite teens. Secrets pile up as each sister lives a double life. . . . until their worlds come crashing together and Tess finds herself in the middle of a conspiracy with one of her classmates and a client of Ivy's. Suddenly, there is much more on the line than good grades, money, or politics, and the price fo...

Summary : They exist in two different centuries, but their love defies time. Cassandra is a headstrong teenager craving drama and adventure, so the last thing she wants is to spend her summer marooned with her mother and new stepfather in a snooty Massachusetts shore town. But when a dreamy stranger named Lawrence shows up on their private beach claiming it’s his own—and that the year is 1925—she is swept into a mystery a hundred years in the making. As she searches for answers in the present, Cassandra discovers a truth that puts their growing love—and Lawrence’s life—in jeopardy. Desperate to save him, Cassandra must find a way to change history—or risk losing Lawrence forever. Biography : Renee Collins grew up on a beach in Hawaii. Sadly, she never met anyone from the past on those shores, but she did go on to get a degree in History, which is almost the same.  Follow her on twitter: HERE

The Truth According to Us  by Annie Barrows Blurb from Goodreads : Evoking the same small town charm with the same great eye for character, the co-author of Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society finds her own voice in this debut novel about a young debutante working for the Federal Writer's Project whose arrival in Macedonia, West Virginia changes the course of history for a prominent family who has been sitting on a secret for decades. The Romeyn family is a fixture in the town, their identity tied to its knotty history. Layla enters their lives and lights a match to the family veneer and a truth comes to light that will change each of their lives forever. My Review: After Station Eleven , this is my favorite book I've read this year.  Set in the summer of 1938, I could feel the oppressive heat and rebel sympathies oozing out of the pages that I couldn't stop turning.  Even though Macedonia, West Virginia is a fict...

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins Blurb from Goodreads : Neil Gaiman meets Joe Hill in this astonishingly original, terrifying, and darkly funny contemporary fantasy.  Carolyn's not so different from the other human beings around her. She's sure of it. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. She even remembers what clothes are for.  After all, she was a normal American herself, once.  That was a long time ago, of course--before the time she calls "adoption day," when she and a dozen other children found themselves being raised by a man they learned to call Father. Father could do strange things. He could call light from darkness. Sometimes he raised the dead. And when he was disobeyed, the consequences were terrible.  In the years since Father took her in, Carolyn hasn't gotten out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father's anc...