All I Need by Susane Colasanti

Title: All I Need
Author: Susane Colasanti
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: May 21st, 2013
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Pages: 240
Format: Hardcover
Acquired: BEA 2013
Age Group: Young Adult

The last night of summer is only the beginning.

Skye wants to meet the boy who will change her life forever. Seth feels their instant connection the second he sees her. When Seth starts talking to Skye at the last beach party of the summer, it’s obvious to both of them that this is something real. But when Seth leaves for college before they exchange contact info, Skye wonders if he felt the same way she did—and if she will ever see him again. Even if they find their way back to each other, can they make a long-distance relationship work despite trust issues, ex drama, and some serious background differences?

Teen favorite Susane Colasanti returns to the alternating-voice style of her beloved debut When It Happens in this Serendipity-inspired story about summer, soul mates, and the moments that change our lives forever

My first Susane Colasanti novel and I must say, this was worth it! A quick, fast, fun read about summer romancing. While I may never have one (then again, we can never say never) it was interesting the way this novel played out. Believe me, the line waiting (and the sore feet) I had to do at BEA in order to get this book was well worth it.

When Skye meets Seth, it's a summer romance waiting to happen. Skye, though, is still a high school junior, while Seth is off to college. Not only that, but they have their socioeconomic differences that come between the two throughout the novel.

While simple, this book still touched on a lot of really important and real life issues; not just for those in high school, but those in college.

I absolutely adored the changes in point of view throughout the book. Between Skye and Seth, I had a lot of fun getting into the mind of a guy.

The whole thing was entertaining and made me like this book a whole lot more.

Colasanti is wonderful.

Black Dawn by Rachel Caine

Title: Black Dawn
Author: Rachel Caine
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: May 1st, 2012
Publisher: NAL Trade
Pages: 367
Format: Paperback
Acquired: Bought
Interest: Series
Others in the Series: Glass House, The Dead Girl's Dance, Midnight Alley, Feast of Fools, Lord of Misrule, Carpe Corpus, Fade Out, Kiss of Death, Ghost Town, Bite Club, and Last Breath
Age Group: Young Adult

Ever since the draug—mysterious creatures that prey on vampires—took over Morganville, the lives of student Claire Danvers and her friends have been thrown into turmoil. Most of the town’s residents have evacuated, but Claire, Shane, Eve and Michael have chosen to stay and fight.Using the city’s water system to spread, the draug have rapidly multiplied. Things in Morganville look grim, especially since vampire Amelie—the town founder—has been infected by the master draug’s bite.

Now, if Claire and her friends don’t figure out how to cure Amelie and defeat the draug, it looks like Morganville will become little more than a ghost town…

Morganville is falling apart, but Rachel Caine is truly building something even cooler.

Things are heating up or watering up now with the draug slowly taking over Morganville. Now that the gang and pretty much the whole time are cornered up, an attack has to be placed in order to take back their town.

I still love how Rachel Caine is mixing it up by changing point of views. Unlike the other ones that started out slowly with one point of view here and there, and then giving whole chapters, but still focusing heavily on Claire, to giving a lot of equal time to many of the characters.

Things between Eve and Michael are a little rocky, Amelie is falling deeper and deeper into her sickness, Oliver has sort of taken over/fawning over Amelie, Shane is protective, Myrinn might be in love with Claire, and the said Claire is trying to make it another day.

Yep. Caine knows how to keep the interest in the series. I love how she added this, just so effortlessly, while still closing up what remind of the last few story-lines.

I'm very excited the way things are going. The story is getting more and more complex, the characters more interesting (or in the case of Eve, more annoying) and I am truly sad knowing that the series is coming to an end soon, because I don't know what I'll do knowing that I won't have my favorite quartet to look forward to.

Le sigh. You win some you lose some, I guess. 

Last Breath by Rachel Caine

Title: Last Breath
Author: Rachel Caine
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: November 1st, 2011
Publisher: NAL Trade
Pages: 335
Format: Paperback
Acquired: Bought
Interest: Series
Others in the Series: Glass House, The Dead Girl's Dance, Midnight Alley, Feast of Fools, Lord of Misrule, Carpe Corpus, Fade Out, Kiss of Death, Ghost Town and Bite Club
Age Group: Young Adult

With her boss preoccupied researching the Founder Houses in Morganville, student Claire Danvers is left to her own devices when she learns that three vampires have vanished without a trace. She soon discovers that the last person seen with one of the missing vampires is someone new to town-a mysterious individual named Magnus. After an uneasy encounter with Morganville's latest resident, Claire is certain Magnus isn't merely human. But is he a vampire-or something else entirely

Rachel Caine does it again by blowing me away!

Usually, in a series that is this long, I always fear that the interest will die away and that the characters will no longer be interesting, but that is not the case with this book series. If anything, they just keep getting better and better.

I absolutely love how Caine changes things up, which is why things become so interesting, I feel. Now the readers are no longer just looking at Claire's point of view, but looking into Shane, Eve, Michael, and even Amelie. Now that was interesting, to say the least.

As for Eve and Michael, all I can say is that the chick is really grinding on my last nerve. I mean, marriage, really? She was okay in the beginning, but now she's just irritating me and I really don't like her. And then she has this bad habit of complaining on just about everything and all I can think is, Why is she still around?

Shane and Claire are just as cute as ever.

Of course, things took an interesting twist that left me, well, with my last breath (no pun intended). Caine finds new and better ways to keep the interest alive, and she is winning.

Bite Club by Rachel Caine

Title: Bite Club
Author: Rachel Caine
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: May 3rd, 2011
Publisher: NAL Trade
Pages: 340
Format: Paperback
Acquired: Bought
Interest: Series
Others in the Series: Glass House, The Dead Girl's Dance, Midnight Alley, Feast of Fools, Lord of Misrule, Carpe Corpus, Fade Out, Kiss of Death, and Ghost Town
Age Group: Young Adult

After discovering that vampires populate her town, college student Claire Danvers knows that the undead just want to live their lives. But someone else wants them to get ready to rumble.

There's a new extreme sport getting picked up on the Internet: bare—knuckle fights pitting captured vampires against each other—or humans. Tracking the remote signal leads Claire—accompanied by her friends and frenemies—to discover that what started as an online brawl will soon threaten everyone in Morganville...

Just when I thought that Rachel Caine could not surprise me more, she does it again, but this time two fold. Not only are we reading about Claire and all her adventures, but now we even get Shane's point of view. And things are getting a little tense.

The whole book kept me on edge, as Shane fell further and further down a road of no return, while Claire scrambles to find a way to bring him back. When a new gym opens up, things with Shane begin to change as he begins to change.

And an old enemy returns, one that many faithful readers would be very familiar with.

As much as I love this book, I was also starting to get irritated with Eve. For once, I was really wishing that she wasn't around because she just annoyed me and I have a bad feeling that she will continue to irk me for the rest of the book series.

Every time she appeared, I just had to roll my eyes because she was a thorn on my side.

Besides that, I honestly liked the book. A lot of things in Morganville are going to change and I'm a little excited to see just what happens!

Book Blitz: Shine Not Burn by Elle Casey

 

Goodreads | Amazon | Website | Twitter | Facebook | Author Goodreads

Title: Shine Not Burn
Author: Elle Casey
Release Date: June 30th, 2013












IT HAPPENED IN VEGAS. I can't be held responsible. Things that happen there are supposed to stay there, right? Right? Yeeeah. Not so much. ... Andie's just days away from tying the knot, but there's just ooooone little glitch. Apparently, she's already married. Or someone with her name is married to a guy out in Oregon of all places, and the courthouse won't issue her a marriage license until it's all cleared up. Tripping her way through cow pies and country songs to meet up with a man who gets around places on horseback is her very last idea of how to have a good time, but if she's going to get married, make partner at the firm, and have two point five kids before she's thirty-five, she needs to get to the bottom of this snafu and fix it quick ... before her fiance finds out and everything she's been working toward goes up in flames.

Author Interview: 

1.  You started out writing in YA.  What brought you over to New Adult?

I've been a reader of new adult titles even before they were called 'new adult'.  And I love the age group it covers.  18-30 years old is such a great time in life, isn't it?  I mean, it's when you sow your wild oats, learn about yourself in the context of the whole world and not just your family and friends; it's where you figure out who you're going to be.  The adult-formative years I guess you could call it.  And the sex part is awesome too, I won't lie.  You can only get so sexy with a YA book, so as a writer, I have to hold back.  In NA, I don't have to do that.  It can be passionate, raw, sometimes awkward and full of bad decisions, but it can be REAL.  I guess that's what I love about NA most … it's raw and real.

3.  How do you write so many books in such a short period of time?

Short and sweet:  I have a system for getting the work done, and I'm a helluva fast typer.  More details: I have a ton of stories always waiting in my head to be told, and when I sit down at the computer, the words just kind of spill out.  My stories are very character-driven, meaning I don't make up the story.  I just find the characters wandering around in my head, put them in a situation, and let them run with it.  Now that I'm a full-time writer, I can dedicate more of my time to writing that I used to when I was also teaching at a university.  I treat writing as a business and try to be very disciplined about it.  After eighteen months of writing, I've published 20 novels, so I think my system is working.  :)

5.  What books do you have in the pipeline right now?

All kinds of good stuff!  I'm so excited to get them out to readers.  Here's the NA Romance line-up for June, July, and August: Shine Not Burn, By Design, and Don't Make Me Beautiful, and then a 3-book series that will be released on surprise dates this year: Rebel, Hellion, and Trouble.  Links to all of them on Goodreads here:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17973653-shine-not-burn

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17981510-by-degrees

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17981514-don-t-make-me-beautiful

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18111600-rebel

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18111602-hellion

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18111607-trouble

Elle Casey is a full-time writer of New Adult and Young Adult titles in several genres, including romance, urban fantasy, sci-fi dystopian, and action-adventure. She's an American girl who's been living in southern France with her husband and three children since 2010. She loves chatting with her readers, so feel free to drop her a line.

Ghost Town by Rachel Caine

Title: Ghost Town
Author: Rachel Caine
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: October 26th, 2010
Publisher: NAL Trade
Pages: 338
Format: Paperback
Acquired: Bought
Interest: Series
Others in the Series: Glass House, The Dead Girl's Dance, Midnight Alley, Feast of Fools, Lord of Misrule, Carpe Corpus, Fade Out, and Kiss of Death
Age Group: Young Adult

While developing a new system to maintain Morganville's defenses, student Claire Danvers discovers a way to amplify vampire mental powers. Through this, she's able to re-establish the field around this vampire-infested Texas college town that protects it from outsiders.

But the new upgrades have an unexpected consequence: people inside the town begin to slowly forget who they are-even the vampires. Soon, the town's little memory problem has turned into a full-on epidemic. Now Claire needs to figure out a way to pull the plug on her experiment- before she forgets how to save Morganville...

As many of you know, I was reading these books in volumes as they came out, but it has been well over a year since the last volume was released and I was getting impatient and needed my Morganville fix, so instead of waiting, I just got the rest of the books individually. Now, I'm just waiting for the last one.

And what a fix I needed. I have been on a nonstop Morganville Vampires marathon since I got the books, which for those of you that follow me on Instagram know that I got a lot of them.

First can I say how much I love the cover? I looked back at some of the covers for the earlier books, and this I have to say is so much better. The other books that followed afterwards also look amazing. And I love the color schemes that they got going on.

Now, to the story. Rachel Caine has developed the characters beautifully. Even though it has been awhile since I last read anything Morganville I love how I'm able to pick this up and still be able to remember everything that occurred in the last novels. And I'm able to remember how the characters are and compare them to now. It's crazy how things happen.

I'm so glad there was much more of Amelie and Oliver.

Also, is it just me or do the vampires get much deadlier in this book and those that follow? I feel like they do, which just reminds me how vampires are supposed to be. Deadly and fierce.

Rachel Caine is a genius and I absolutely love this series. I love it so, so much!

The Pleasures of Summer by Evie Hunter

Title: The Pleasures of Summer
Author: Evie Hunter
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: May 30th, 2013
Publisher: Penguin Ireland
Pages: 448
Format: Electronic
Acquired: From Publisher
Interest: Series
Others in the Series: The Pleasures of Winter
Age Group: Adult

The Pleasures of Summer is a steamy erotic story of romantic obsession and explosive sexual chemistry for fans of Fifty Shades of Grey, The Pleasures of Winter and Sylvia Day's stories.

Summer O'Sullivan is rich, beautiful and in mortal danger. Her father has made powerful enemies who are targeting his precious daughter. Until the threat passes, Summer needs a bodyguard - someone to protect her and, she expects, to treat her with the reverence she's used to.

Into Summer's gilded cage comes former ranger, Flynn Grant. As far as Flynn is concerned, this is the assignment from hell, minding the spoilt daughter of a multi-millionaire. Summer and Flynn are poised to hate each other on sight. Even his devastating looks do not make up for how Flynn's rules cramp Summer's style. Unsurprisingly, the sparks fly between them. But when Summer breaks the rules one time too often, Flynn teaches her a lesson that leaves them shattered - and bound together in a way that astonishes them both.

In their remote hideout, the two start a battle over who is the tamer, and who is the tamed. It's a duel that stretches their minds and bodies beyond every limit. And in time their hearts begin to surrender too.

But when the dark forces that have been stalking Summer finally track them down, the battle is no longer a game, but a matter of life and death ...

Evie Hunter does it again! The companion to the first steamy novel in this wonderful series, the authors continue the tale with Summer and Flynn.

Summer is a spoiled socialite, who loves parties and having a good time. But Summer's in danger, because somebody is after her. After an accident, Summer's father decides to give her a body guard. She does her best to run off as many of them as possible, until Flynn comes along. And he's not so easy to scare away.

Flynn may just have met his match in Summer. She's sexy and tempting, a forbidden fruit that he has to taste. But she's a job, and he should never get involved with someone in the job.

Now isolated, the two of them are confronted with temptation at every turn. Flynn to keep his hands from her, and Summer doing her best to seduce him in order to get her way. With emotions running high on both ends it'll be a test of wills to see who bends first.

Honestly, this book was just as good as the first one. Summer proved to be an incredibly headache and Flynn to be a man not to mess with. Whatever was going on between the two, I don't even know what to call it, was there from the moment they met and Hunter never let it go!

This novel had me and wouldn't let me go. I never had a reason to stop reading this book, and I'm so glad that I did get the chance to read it. As erotic literature goes, I'd say this novel would be in the top ten of amazing books to read in the genre.

And there's going to be a third book! You all don't even know how excited I am right now! I can't wait to see what comes next, because there is no stopping the awesome team work of Evie Hunter!