Around The World ARC Tours Presents Behold the Bones (Beware the Wild #2) by Natalie C. Parker Early Review

Synopsis:

Candace “Candy” Pickens has been obsessed with the swamp lore of her tiny Louisiana town for . . . forever. Name any ghostly swamp figure and Candy will recite the entire tale in a way that will curl your toes and send chills up your spine.

That doesn’t mean Candy’s a believer, however. Even though she and her friends entered the swamp at the start of summer and left it changed, Candy’s the only one who can’t see or feel the magical swamp Shine. She’s also the only one who can’t see the ghosts that have been showing up and spooking everyone in town ever since. So Candy concentrates on other things—real things. Like fighting with her mother and plotting her escape from her crazy town.

But ghosts aren’t the only newcomers in Sticks, Louisiana. The King family arrives like a hurricane: in a blur and unwanted—at least by Candy. Mr. King is intent on filming the rumored ghostly activity for his hit TV show, Local Haunts. And while Candy can’t ignore how attracted she is to eighteen-year-old Gage King and how much his sister, Nova, wants to be friends, she’s still suspicious of the King family.

As Candy tries to figure out why the Kings are really in town and why the swamp that had previously cast her aside now seems to be invading every crack in her logical, cynical mind, she stumbles across the one piece of swamp lore she didn’t know. It’s a tale that’s more truth than myth, and may have all the answers . . . and its roots are in Candy’s own family tree.

Goodreads: 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25742635-behold-the-bones?ac=1&from_search=1

Review:

Oh man I do not know where to start with this review because I don't want to spoil it but there is so much in this book from suspense to folk lore.

We meet Candy and her friends who live in a small town steeped in folk lore and stories that may or may not be true. See Candy has been obsessed with the swamp lore of her tiny town. Then one day her friends decide to enter the swamp and when they come out everyone is different when they come out except Candy. Candy can't see anything her friends see and she is frustrated because she has never been able to see anything and she wonders why.

So all Candy can do is think about the day she can leave her small town and start a new normal life somewhere else. Then one day a new family comes to town and the town is turned upside down and all Candy can think about is why are the new comers here in her town looking for the ghosts and things she can't see. What is she missing here? She starts to investigate the new family and what she finds she does not like. What could it be? And will it change her life.........

NATALIE C. PARKER 

Natalie is the author of Beware the Wild and Behold the Bones (due out from HarperTeen February 23, 2016), as well as the editor of the forthcoming young adult anthology, Triangles: The Points of Love. She is the founder of Madcap Retreats, an organization offering a yearly calendar writing retreats and workshops for writers in all stages of their careers. In her not-so-spare time, she is a grant coordinator for the University of Kansas, where she runs writing workshops for tribal college students in STEM disciplines. 

Around The World ARC Tours Presents Away We Go by Emil Ostrovski Early Review

Synopsis:

KIRKUS - "Intellectual boys' boarding school story meets near-future dystopia in this end-times tale...the imminent apocalypse serves primarily to accelerate the claustrophobic immediacy of boarding school angst. Noah and his friends form loving, believably complex relationships, caroming from suicidal ideation to conspiracy theory to a quest for the sacred in mundane death. Lovers of self-consciously witty nihilist profundities will be thrilled..."

Westing is not your typical school. For starters, you have to have one very important quality in order to be admitted—you have to be dying. Every student at Westing has been diagnosed with PPV, or the Peter Pan Virus. No one is expected to live to graduation.

What do you do when you go to a school where no one has a future? Noah Falls, his girlfriend Alice, and his best friend Marty spend their time drinking, making out, and playing video games on awaywego.com. But when an older boy named Zach (who Noah may or may not be in love with) invites Noah and Marty to join his secret Polo Club, the lives of both boys change as they struggle to find meaning in their shortened existence.

With an innovative format that includes interstitial documents, such as flyers, postcards, and handwritten notes, Away We Go is a funny, honest look at first love and tragic heartbreak. For fans of Grasshopper Jungle and Noggin. 

Goodreads: 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25679389-away-we-go?ac=1&from_search=1

Review:

First I have to start out by saying I liked this book but I didn't like some parts to it. I have read a lot of books this year but this one stands out in so many ways both good and bad. The setting is in a Boarding School for kids. What these kids are allowed to do and how they are allowed to act was a little strange for me when I was reading. The one thing that stood out for me was one of the main characters had some issues and he dealt with them as being simple.

In this story we meet best friends Noah, Alice, and Marty. They are attending this exclusive Boarding School for kids who have a virus. They live their lives day to day and have no ambitions to do anything. Their day consists of mundane things like video games and hanging with friends. Then things change one night for them when an older boy Zach invites them to be a part of his secret club.

Once they join this club things change and they have to decide what they are willing to do and willing to believe. What will they do? Stay in the group or leave it and try to move on with their lives?

About Author:

I'm twenty-five.

Rather than give you a witty, self-deprecating account of the trials and tribulations of my twenty-five year old, suburban, upper-middle class, went-to-a-girl's-liberal-arts-college life, I'll admit that I haven't really done anything much worth reading about.

So in lieu of providing you with my biography, I will recommend that you read Desmond Tutu's. Here.

Why Desmond Tutu?

Well, I've always liked his name.

Around The World ARC Tours Presents The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos Early Review

Synopsis:

All Imogene Scott knows of her mother is the bedtime story her father told her as a child. It's the story of how her parents met: he, a forensic pathologist, she, a mysterious woman who came to identify a body. A woman who left Imogene and her father when she was a baby, a woman who was always possessed by a powerful loneliness, a woman who many referred to as troubled waters.

When Imogene is seventeen, her father, now a famous author of medical mysteries, strikes out in the middle of the night and doesn't come back. Neither Imogene's stepmother nor the police know where he could've gone, but Imogene is convinced he's looking for her mother. She decides to put to use the skills she's gleaned from a lifetime of her father's books to track down a woman she's never known, in order to find him and, perhaps, the answer to the question she's carried with her for her entire life.

Rebecca Podos' debut is a powerful, affecting story of the pieces of ourselves that remain mysteries even to us - the desperate search through empty spaces for something to hold on to. 

Goodreads:

  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22811780-the-mystery-of-hollow-places?ac=1&from_search=1

Review:

This book was amazing I mean just amazing for me to read. I started it and could not put it down. It is full of mystery and surprises and secrets that I did not know what happened until the end and then I was like holy moses is that the end? I wanted more. I wanted to keep turning pages until I had my fair share of the main character Imogene.

In this story we get to meet Imogene Scott. She lives with her father and loves to hear the stories he tells about her mother. Her mother is no where to be found but her father tells her stories of her mother to keep her alive in Imogene's mind.

Now 17 years old Imogene and her famous father are living the high life until one night he disappears and no one knows where he has gone. Her step mother has no idea and the police certainly do not have any ideas of where he has gone. But Imogene thinks something differently and decides she has to find her mother in order to find her father.

Putting everything she knows about her mother and every knowledge she learned from her father she sets out to find her father. Will her memories of her fathers stories help her out or will she never find her father or mother.

About Author:

Rebecca Podos' debut YA novel, THE MYSTERY OF HOLLOW PLACES, is forthcoming from Balzer + Bray (HarperCollins) on 1/26/16. Rebecca is a graduate of the Writing, Literature and Publishing program at Emerson College, where she won the M.F.A. Award for Best Thesis. Her fiction has been published in Glimmer Train, Glyph, CAJE, Paper Darts, Bellows American Review, andSmokelong Quarterly. Past Awards include the Helman Award for Short Fiction, the David Dornstein Memorial Creative Writing Prize for Young Adult Writers, and the Hillerman-McGarrity Scholarship for Creative Writing. She works as a YA and MG agent at the Rees Literary Agency in Boston.

She's represented by the excellent Lana Popovic.

Around The World ARC Tours Presents Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan Early Review

Synopsis:

Seventeen years ago, an eclipse cloaked the kingdom of Relhok in perpetual darkness. In the chaos, an evil chancellor murdered the king and queen and seized their throne. Luna, Relhok’s lost princess, has been hiding in a tower ever since. Luna’s survival depends on the world believing she is dead.

But that doesn’t stop Luna from wanting more. When she meets Fowler, a mysterious archer braving the woods outside her tower, Luna is drawn to him despite the risk. When the tower is attacked, Luna and Fowler escape together. But this world of darkness is more treacherous than Luna ever realized.

With every threat stacked against them, Luna and Fowler find solace in each other. But with secrets still unspoken between them, falling in love might be their most dangerous journey yet.

With lush writing and a star–crossed romance, Reign of Shadows is Sophie Jordan at her best. 

Goodreads:

  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24657660-reign-of-shadows?ac=1&from_search=1

Review:

Okay I love remakes of children's stories but this one takes the cake on a retelling of a favorite story of mine growing up.

In Reign Of Shadows we get to meet Luna a Princess who is hiding because her family was murdered. 17 years later she is still in hiding but wants more out of life. Even though she needs people to think she is dead she is tired of being alone in the woods by herself.

Then one day she sees a young guy in the woods and she is interested in who he is and where he comes from. Soon she finds out what his name is when there is another disaster to the tower. She and Fowler escape from the tower but when Luna makes it outside into the dark world she is not sure she should have left the tower. As Luna struggles with her fears she gets closer to Fowler but will secrets and lies keep them from becoming more than friends.....

About Author:

Sophie Jordan took her adolescent daydreaming one step further and penned her first historical romance in the back of her high school Spanish class. This passion led her to pursue a degree in English and History.

A brief stint in law school taught her that case law was not nearly as interesting as literature - teaching English seemed the natural recourse. After several years teaching high school students to love Antigone, Sophie resigned with the birth of her first child and decided it was time to pursue the long-held dream of writing.

In less than three years, her first book, Once Upon A Wedding Night, a 2006 Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Nominee for Best First Historical, hit book shelves. Her second novel, Too Wicked To Tame, released in March 2007 with a bang, landing on the USA Today Bestseller's List. 

Cover Reveal For Adios By Bethany Lopez

~ COVER REVEAL ~

Title: Adios

Series: Stories about Melissa, book 6

Author: Bethany Lopez

Genre: Contemporary Young Adult

Cover Design: Makeready Designs

Release Date: Dec 16, 2015

Junior year is halfway over and Melissa is thrilled to be going with Jess, Jimmy, and Brian to Cabo San Lucas for Spring Break. Things at home haven't been great, and she could use the break that the sun and sand of Mexico is sure to bring. But things don't go as planned and the perfect vacation changes things for Melissa and her friends. Will the damage done be permanent and will life at home ever get back to the way it used to be?

Goodreads

Special Pre-order Price - $.99

Amazon 

iBooks 

Nook 

Kobo

Smashwords

If you haven't read the other books in this YA series, now's the perfect time to get caught up!

~ SERIES SALE ~

The Stories about Melissa series is a coming of age series that follows Melissa, her family, and her friends. Similar to Sweet Valley High, each book is novella length. There will be eight books in the series.

Stories about Melissa reading order:

Ta Ta for Now! (Book 1, FREE)

Amazon

Barnes & Noble 

iBooks 

Smashwords 

Kobo 

xoxoxo (Book 2, 99cents)

Amazon Barnes & Noble iBooks Smashwords Kobo 

Ciao (Book 3, 99cents) 

Amazon 

Barnes & Noble 

iBooks 

Smashwords

Kobo 

TTYL (Book 4, 99cents) 

Amazon 

Barnes & Noble 

iBooks

Smashwords 

Kobo 

With Love (Book 5, 99cents) 

Amazon

iBooks

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

Lady Reader Bookstuff Blog Tours Presents Traffick by Ellen Hopkins

The sequel to “Tricks,” Hopkins’ latest book follows five teenage victims of sex trafficking — from all walks of life and gender orientations — as they try to extricate themselves from their current situations and find a new way of life. 

Synopsis:

Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching...for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don't expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words "I love you" are said for all the wrong reasons.

Five moving stories remain separate at first, then interweave to tell a larger, powerful story -- a story about making choices, taking leaps of faith, falling down, and growing up. A story about kids figuring out what sex and love are all about, at all costs, while asking themselves, "Can I ever feel okay about myself?" 

Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5510384-tricks

Review:

I have one word for this book after reading it "REALITY"

This is a story about five teenagers who have had some things in their life happen to them and they just don't know how to handle it. So decide that they are going to turn Tricks on the street to get the feeling they are looking for.

I have to say that Ellen had me crying, laughing and yelling at the kids because I wanted them to have a better life and make better choices and for one of the characters I could related to her.

What kept coming to mind is if you love someone and let them go, if they love you truly love you they will come back.

About The Book:

TRAFFICK (Tricks, #2) By: Ellen Hopkins 

Release Date: November 3, 2015

 Pages: 528 

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Five teens victimized by sex trafficking try to find their way to a new life in this riveting companion to the New York Times bestselling Tricks from Ellen Hopkins, author of Crank. 

In her bestselling novel, Tricks, Ellen Hopkins introduced us to five memorable characters tackling these enormous questions: Eden, the preacher’s daughter who turns tricks in Vegas and is helped into a child prostitution rescue; Seth, the gay farm boy disowned by his father who finds himself without money or resources other than his own body; Whitney, the privileged kid coaxed into the life by a pimp and whose dreams are ruined in a heroin haze; Ginger, who runs away from home with her girlfriend and is arrested for soliciting an undercover cop; and Cody, whose gambling habit forces him into the life, but who is shot and left for dead.

And now, in Traffick, these five are faced with the toughest question of all: Is there a way out? How these five teenagers face the aftermath of their decisions and experiences is the soul of this story that exposes the dark, ferocious underbelly of the child trafficking trade. Heart wrenching and hopeful, Traffick takes us on five separate but intertwined journeys through the painful challenges of recovery, rehabilitation, and renewal to forgiveness and love. All the way home.

Goodreads

Purchase Links: 

| IndieBound | B&N | Amazon | Powell's |BAM |S&S

Review:

Traffick where to begin on this amazing book. I mean in Tricks the first book Ellen had me at the edge of my seat. She had me laughing, crying, screaming and most of all hurting because this is reality for some teens.

I have seriously thought about opening up a ranch and saving teens who have been the sex trade. For the Preachers daughter Eden turning tricks in Vegas was fun at first but the funness started to wear off and she was rescued by a child prostitution rescue center. It is here that she will have to struggle to change her life and get back some normalcy.

My man Seth living in a farm land was disowned by his father. Not only is he disowned and shunned but he has n money and no place to go. So he does what he has to and starts tricking for the money to survive.

Cody started gambling and winning and just knew he was going to be a great gambler until reality hit and he was losing more than winning. It forces him into a life that he does not want to do and to make matters worse he is shot and left for dead.

Ginger who is so in love with her girlfriend that she can't see any other way runs away with her and ends up tricking and busted for soliciting an under cover cop. Arrested and booked on soliciting she has no one to turn to. What is going to happen to her?

Whitney who has it all. She was born into privileged spoil and given everything is tricked by a pimp to trick herself out for them so they can get drugs. See being a heroine addict is very expensive. Whitney will soon see that her dreams are slipping right through her hands with every bit of Heroine she takes.

In the end these five teens will have to look at life and find out if there truly is a way out of this mess they have created.

Traffick Teasers:

Pimps - The Trailer:

Follow The Tour:

November 2nd – Batty for Books – Review

November 2nd – Acting Up With Books – Review 

November 3rd – Reads All The Books – Review

November 3rd – Christine Abee – Review

November 4th– anything but vanilla book blog – Top Ten List

November 4th – Bookish Lifestyle – Guest Post

November 4th– A Diary Of A Book Addict – Review 

November 4th– Beauty's Library – Review/Author Interview

November 5th – KDH Reviews – Review 

November 5th – Reads and Treats – Review

November 6th – Book Chic – Review

November 6th – The Power of Three Readers – Review 

November 9th– Reading Junky's Reading Roost – Review 

November 9th – Backseats and Airports – Review 

November 10th – Journeys & Life – Review

November 10th – heyheyheyjackie – Review 

November 10th – Books and Ladders – Review 

November 10th – Bookish Lifestyle – Review 

November 11th– Reading Is Better With Cupcakes – Review

November 11th – Heather Ann's Book Reviews – Review

November 11th – She Reads New Adult – Review 

November 12th – BookAHolics Anonymous – Review

November 12th – Erin Fanning – Guest Post 

November 13th – Heather Harlen – Random Ten’s List

November 13th – Alec John Belle – Review 

November 13th – Confessions of a Kid-lit Lover – Review 

November 13th – Melissa Martin's Reading List – Review / Interview 

November 13th – The Phantom Paragrapher – Review 

November 13th – Teen Librarian Toolbox – Review / Interview 

November 13th – Miranda's Book Blog – Guest Post 

About The Author:

Ellen Hopkins is a poet, freelance writer, and the award-winning author of twenty nonfiction titles and five NY Times Bestselling novels-in-verse. She has published hundreds of articles on subjects ranging from aviation to child abuse to winegrowing. Ellen mentors other writers through her position as a regional adviser for the Nevada chapter of the Society of Children√ïs Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). She is a regular speaker at schools; book festivals and writers conferences across the US, and now throughout the world. 

Goodreads | Website | Twitter |Facebook | Pinterest | Tumblr

Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Event Hosted by:

InkSlinger Presents Release Day Launch for LEVELED by Jay Crownover

We are so excited to bring you the Release Day Launch for LEVELED by Jay Crownover! LEVELED is a Contemporary Romance novella in The Saints of Denver Series being published by HarperCollins. This amazing novella releases TODAY, so be sure to grab your copy now!

Amazon ** Barnes & Noble ** iBooks ** Kobo ** Other

EXCERPT: 

He reached out and shut the medical file in front of him and leaned back in his chair. His eyebrows arched up, and he laced his fingers together and put his index fingers under his chin. “What exactly are you after, Mr. Voss?” His voice was smooth and modulated. I was a disaster, a bundle of nerves and anxiety, and this dude was acting like we were talking about the weather, not my entire life and everything I had ever worked my ass off for. Defiantly I spread my legs apart and slumped back in the chair across from him, making it a point to affect a posture that was as casual as his was professional.

 I had on a faded DPD T-shirt and a pair of jeans with a hole in the knee, and both were a little baggy since I’d lost some of my bulk being laid up in the hospital after the accident. If the guy across from me was a cherry-red Ferrari, then I was a rusted-out and battered John Deere tractor in comparison. “I want my life back, Mr. Frederick. I want to be able to move the way I used to. I want to pass the department physical so I can go back on patrol. I want to be able to walk without needing a crutch or a cane. I want to be the way I was before I got hurt.” 

I was asking for the impossible and I knew it. “And please call me Dom.” He dipped his chin down a little, and the edge of his mouth tilted up in a slight grin. Damn the man was good-looking. I blew out a breath and lifted up my hands to run them over the top of my shorn hair. I was hanging on to my sanity by a thread and my unexpected reaction to the guy that I was hanging every hope I had left on wasn’t helping matters. “All right, Dom. You can call me Lando. That’s what my friends call me.” I felt one of my eyebrows shoot up. “Are we going to be friends?” 

Don’t miss a Sneak Peek of BUILT, the first full-length novel in the Saints of Denver Series, in the back of LEVELED!

About LEVELED: 

We all need a hero...let the Saints of Denver begin. Orlando Frederick knows what it is to be leveled by pain. 

Instead of focusing on his own, he’s made it his mission to help others: sports stars, wounded war vets, survivors of all kinds. 

But when Dom, a rugged, damaged, sinfully attractive cop makes his way into Lando’s physical therapy practice, he might be the biggest challenge yet.

 Lando loved one stubborn man before and barely survived the fallout. 

He’s not sure if he can do it again. 

Dominic Voss is a protector. 

The police badge he wears is not only his job, it’s his identity, so when he’s sidelined because of an injury, the only thing he cares about is getting back on the force. 

He expects Lando to mend his body, he just doesn’t realize the trainer will also have him working towards a hell of a lot more. 

As attraction simmers and flares, Dom sees that Lando needs repair of his own...if only the man will let him close enough to mend what's broken.

   

About Jay Crownover:

 Jay Crownover is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Marked Men and The Point series. Like her characters, she is a big fan of tattoos. She loves music and wishes she could be a rock star, but since she has no aptitude for singing or instrument playing, she'll settle for writing stories with interesting characters that make the reader feel something. She lives in Colorado with her three dogs. 

Website ** Blog ** Facebook ** Twitter

LEVELED Goodreads ** Jay Crownover Goodreads

a Rafflecopter giveaway