First 70 Pages of Desires of the Dead Online!

Kimberly Derting has announced that the first seventy pages of Desires of the Dead, sequel to the amazing novel The Body Finder, are online. I'll admit that I gave in and read all of it in one sitting and I almost wish I hadn't because now I can't wait to read the rest! Really, though, how am I supposed to wait until February 15 to find out what happens to Violet and her super creepy power? Still, if you are unsure if you want to buy Desires of the Dead, read some of the PDF to get a taste.

The Lost Saint by Bree Despain

Summary:
Grace Divine sacrificed her soul to cure Daniel Kalbi and lost her beloved brother in the process.

Desperate to find Jude, Grace befriends Talbot - a newcomer to town who promises he can help her be a hero. But as soon as the two become closer, the wolf grows in Grace, and her relationship with Daniel is put in danger - in more ways than one.

Unaware of the dark path she is walking, Grace begins to give into the wolf - not realizing that an enemy has returned and a deadly trap is about to be sprung.

The heart-pounding sequel to The Dark Divine delivers the same sizzling romance and thrilling action as Bree Despain's first novel. (from back cover)

Review:

I think that The Lost Saint is a very well-written and exciting sequel to The Dark Divine. If you read my review of the first novel, you will know that I was not particularly enamored with the book, even though I still enjoyed reading it. I am still not in love with this series/trilogy (not sure which it is at this point), but I definitely liked The Lost Saint better than its predessor and definitely recommend it for fans of paranormal reads.

The Lost Saint picks right up where The Dark Divine left off - Jude has run away, Grace is grappling with what happened to her that fated night, and Daniel is still in the picture as Grace's boyfriend. Grace's family is slowly falling apart, as her mother is extremely upset due to Jude's disappearance and Grace's pastor father is absent for extended periods searching for Jude.

What I've come to love about Grace is that she is very strong and independent. And what cracks me up about her is that she refuses to do what anyone tells her. Repeatedly in The Lost Saint, Grace is given commands by her parents, her boyfriend, even her brother occasionally. She pretty much just ignores them and does what she wants anyway, which is awesome in the girl power aspect but is sometimes not so smart because these people are giving her good advice.

A series wouldn't be complete with a love triangle, which develops midway through The Lost Saint. For most of the novel, Daniel is absent and their relationship is strained because Grace won't tell her anything that's going on (even though Grace keeps some secrets herself). Actually Daniel became kind of annoying because he was always lying to Grace where he had been and wouldn't explain himself. So naturally Grace turns to Talbot, who helps her and has some answers to her questions. He even agrees to help her find Jude, something that everyone else in her life doesn't seem to care about. I don't particulary like or dislike Daniel - he's just kind of there, not really doing anything - but I did like Talbot. He's mysterious and has that bad boy thing going on (moreso than Daniel) and I'll be excited to see how the love triangle develops further in the next book.

Speaking of the next book, when is it coming out? Because The Lost Saint left off with such a huge cliffhanger that I really need to find out what happens next. Unfortunately, The Lost Saint hasn't even been released yet so I will probably have to wait awhile.

While this series isn't my all-time favorite, I do enjoy a paranormal book every once and awhile (especially one that doesn't feature vampires). If you've read The Dark Divine, you should definitely read its sequel, which is a superior novel in my opinion.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

FTC: ARC provided by publisher.

Release Date: December 28, 2010

2010/Egmont/404 pages

Merry Christmas & Contest Winnner!

First off, I would like to wish a very Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it! I hope Santa brings you everything you want and you get to enjoy the day with your family and friends. And hopefully there's a couple books under the tree :) I got some that I can't wait to read!

Also I'd like to announce the winner of The Lost Saint giveaway.

Nicole B!

I have just sent you an email so please contact me within a week with your address or I'll pick another winner.

Merry Christmas again!

Reminder: The Lost Saint Giveaway Ends Tonight!

This is just a little reminder that the contest for an ARC of The Lost Saint by Bree Despain ends tonight. The contest post says it ends at 6 pm, but in the spirit of Christmas I'll extend it to 8 pm so you have a little more time to enter. Extra entries are available if you want more chances to win. Visit the contest post for details.

I also hope everyone's Christmas Eve goes well! Get out to the stores soon to get your last minute shopping done.

The Dark Divine by Bree Despain

Summary:

Grace Divine - daughter of the local pastor - always knew something terrible happened the night Daniel Kalbi disappeared and her brother Jude came home covered in his own blood.

Now that Daniel's returned, Grace must choose between her growing attraction to him and her loyalty to her brother.

As Grace gets closer to Daniel, she learns the truth about that most mysterious night and how to save the ones she loves, but it might cost her the one thing she cherishes most: her soul. (taken from inside jacket)

Review:

I started out not liking The Dark Divine at all. I was all ready to write a review saying how this book just didn't click with me. But once I got past the halfway mark, I started liking The Dark Divine more and more. While I still didn't love it, I can definitely say that I enjoyed reading The Dark Divine.

The book took awhile for me to get into. I just wasn't all that interesting in reading about Grace and some of the other characters. Grace annoyed me in small, subtle ways - like how she always described her friend April like a dog. And then Grace's brother, Jude, was so perfect in the beginning it seemed unrealistic (that changes very quickly, however, and makes Jude a much more interesting character). I'm still not completely sold on Daniel, as the only reason that Grace seems to be in love with him was shared history and people telling her not to talk to him.

But as the plot unfolded, those little things I disliked in the beginning were pushed to the side. I loved the religious symbolism and that it wasn't preachy at all. I loved how the mystery tied into the religion stuff and was just pretty awesome. There's a lot of action at the end and a pretty big twist in which things are cleared up while other things are left open.

While I'm not jumping for joy for The Dark Divine, I did like it and enjoyed reading it a lot. I definitely liked it enough to read the sequel, The Lost Saint, which I hope answers some of my questions. If you want to read The Lost Saint, be sure to enter my contest, which ends tomorrow night!

Rating: 7 out of 10.

FTC: borrowed from library.

2010/Egmont/372 pages.

Waiting on Wednesday - 17

Waiting on Wednesday was started by Jill at Breaking the Spine for bloggers and readers to get excited about upcoming books.

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

City of Fallen Angels takes place two months after the events of City of Glass. In it, a mysterious someone’s killing the Shadowhunters who used to be in Valentine’s Circle and displaying their bodies around New York City in a manner designed to provoke hostility between Downworlders and Shadowhunters, leaving tensions running high in the city and disrupting Clary’s plan to lead as normal a life as she can — training to be a Shadowhunter, and pursuing her relationship with Jace. As Jace and Clary delve into the issue of the murdered Shadowhunters, they discover a mystery that has deeply personal consequences for them — consequences that may strengthen their relationship, or rip it apart forever. Meanwhile, internecine warfare among vampires is tearing the Downworld community apart, and only Simon — the Daylighter who everyone wants on their side — can decide the outcome; too bad he wants nothing to do with Downworld politics. Love, blood, betrayal and revenge: the stakes are higher than ever in City of Fallen Angels.

When I heard that Cassandra Clare was writing a fourth book in The Mortal Instruments series, I was estactic.This trilogy was one of my favorites and I can't wait to follow Clary and Jace around some more. Look for it in stores on April 5, 2011.

The Summer of Skinny Dipping by Amanda Howells

Summary:

Sometimes I still wake up shivering in the early hours of the morning, drowning in dreams of being out there in the ocean that summer, of looking up at the moon and feeling as invisible and free as a fish. But I'm jumping ahead, and to tell the story right I have to go back to the very beginning. To a place called Indigo Beach. To a boy with pale skin that glowed against the dark waves. To the start of something neither of us could have predicted, and which would mark us forever, making everything that came after and before seem like it belonged to another life. (from back cover)

Review:

As I was typing the summary, I realized that it is very vague and doesn't really tell you anything at all about the novel. So I'll give you the scoop: basically, Mia and her family go to the Hamptons in New York to stay at her aunt and uncle's beach house for the whole summer. This is usually a tradition, but it's the first time it's happened in a few years. Mia is really excited to see her cousin Corrine, who's the same age, and they are really close whenever they get together. However, since the last time Mia saw her, Corrine has transformed into a beautiful, and snobby, socialite, who likes to party and spend her parents' money. So we have this conflict about Mia feeling out of place... and the she meets Simon, the love interest.

I was really excited to read The Summer of Skinny Dipping because I love summer (and need some of the beach and warm sun to get me through this cold cold winter) and because I heard some good things about it from other bloggers. However, I was slightly disappointed with the book as a whole, and really disappointed with the ending.

Starting with the book as a whole, I definitely found The Summer of Skinny Dipping to be enjoyable. There was never a time where I wanted to stop reading nor do I regret this read. It was fun, the romance was light and cute, and it takes place at the beach, which in my book can make any novel infinitely better. I thought Simon was sweet and interesting because he likes The Great Gatsby and wants to be an artist.

What I didn't like was the class conflict and social distinctions that became very tiresome. Everything about the book centered around money, and sometimes even that wasn't enough. You have Mia and her immediate family, who isn't poor but is struggling, and Mia's mother was a debutante in her day. There's Mia's aunt and uncle and their family who are wealthy and have a lot of rich friends. There's Corrine's rich friends that come over for parties. And there is also Simon, who is also rich, but they are noveau riche, which is apparently a bad thing, meaning that their money is new and they still aren't part of the elite social stratum that constitutes the Hamptons. I don't have a problem with rich or poor people or anyone in between, but when all the conflict in the novel centers around these class distintions the novel becomes tiresome. It was all about how Mia didn't fit in and then how Simon also didn't fit in (though for two different reasons). I started to get sick of reading about stereotypical airhead rich kids (though obviously there are some). For some reason, all this just rubbed me the wrong way. At least Corrine started taking on some character development but all the rest of the characters were really shallow. This might not annoy anyone else but it just didn't work for me in the novel.

The part of The Summer of Skinny Dipping that disappointed me the most was the ending. It was obvious the author was going for some TRAGIC ENDING, but it just made me scratch my head and think, really? Not that I'm against sad endings or anything, I just thought this was was not well-written and not what I would have chosen. It was just so...bizarre.

Sorry if this review doesn't make much sense, I'm a little tired. But all in all, I definitely enjoyed The Summer of Skinny Dipping and think that it was fun read (until you get to the end, of course). I probably won't read it again, but you can still give it a try and see if you like it.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

FTC: borrowed from library.

2010/Sourcebooks Fire/295 pages.