heather hearts books: 2014

Friday, August 15, 2014

THE STEPSISTER'S TALE by Tracy Barrett

THE BURNING SKY (The Elemental Trilogy #1) by Sherry Thomas

Top Ten Tuesday (4): Top Ten Favorite TV Shows

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme started and organized by the Broke and the Bookish.

WE WERE LIARS by E. Lockhart

Life of a Blogger is a weekly meme hosted on Thursdays by Jessi at Novel Heartbeat.

Waiting on Wednesday (5): THE ORPHAN QUEEN by Jodi Meadows

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine

Top Ten Tuesday (2): Favorite "classic" books

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the wonderful girls at Broke and the Bookish

DEEP BLUE (Waterfire Saga #1) by Jennifer Donnelly

THE FOREVER SONG (Blood of Eden #3) by Julie Kagawa

Life of a Blogger (4): Favorite Sports Teams

Life of a Blogger is a weekly meme hosted on Thursdays by Jessi at Novel Heartbeat.

Hi everyone,

So as most of you know, I am currently fighting leukemia. Things have gone mostly well up to this point with a few bobbles, but after a hospital stay in March, my organs have never totally bounced back. I had to have my gallbladder out and a UTI that I had at that time (around St. Patrick's Day) has stuck with me for all of this time. My bladder, liver, pancreas, and kidneys are all experiencing some troubling symptoms, including some critically high liver enzyme levels.

THE ETERNITY CURE (Blood of Eden #2) by Julie Kagawa

Readers: A few years ago, in my very first blogging attempt, I developed a blog called #singlegirlproblems where I detailed my chronically single life. I didn't do a lot with it -- really only a few entries and about a dozen started but never finished entries. My first Heather's Heart to Heart post was INCREDIBLY well received by you guys. I got more traffic on the blog than I ever had and I got comments, emails, and tweets about it. So in sharing bits of myself with you that are not book related, I thought I'd bring to you some of my entries from #singlegirlproblems and maybe even do a few new ones and finish some of the ones that I'd left untouched. I hope you enjoy them and please, laugh at my expense. They're mostly funny!

PROXY (Proxy #1) by Alex London

Life of a Blogger (3): School

Life of a Blogger is a weekly meme hosted on Thursdays by Jessi at Novel Heartbeat.

THE ONE (The Selection #3) by Kiera Cass

(SPOILER ALERT: This review is a tiny bit spoilery in the last couple paragraphs.)

THE IMMORTAL RULES (Blood of Eden #1) by Julie Kagawa

The whirlwind ...

Hello readers!

I know it might seem like I dropped off the face of the earth, but I assure you, I'm still here, despite a very scary health scare less than six weeks ago.

As many of you know, I have leukemia, which I've been fighting since August and for which I will have completed eight months of treatment in just a couple of days. Not long after my last post, I started to get very sick. I started having very serious pain in my right side that wouldn't go away, a lot of digestive issues, nausea, vomiting, and was just not feeling well. It was probably the sickest I've ever felt. Most of the pain was in my right side. Naturally, we started thinking it might be appendicitis and on Monday, March 17, I was taken to the ER.

SHATTER ME (Shatter Me #1) by Tahereh Mafi

Cover Reveal: NOT QUITE DEAD (Low Country Ghosts #1) by Lyla Payne

As you may have noticed, I rarely do any cover reveals, blitzes, or promotional posts anymore since I've returned from my blogging hiatus. I've really wanted to spend more time talking about books I've actually read, interacting with readers, and doing fun things like Life of a Blogger.

But I'm always open to making an exception, particularly if it's for an author whose work I love and who I know I'm happy to promote. Lyla Payne (otherwise known as Trisha Leigh) is the first author for whom I am making an exception -- and trust me when I tell you it is well deserved.

I've reviewed many of Lyla's books here on the blog. Under Lyla Payne, she has written the USA Today Bestselling Whitman University series, which is considered to be new adult. Under her actual name, Trisha Leigh, she has written The Last Year saga, a young adult series.

Though Whitman University's stories aren't finished, Lyla is taking a brief departure from them to begin a new series called Low Country Ghosts. The first book in the series, Not Quite Dead, releases on April 1 and I am so thrilled to be revealing the beautiful cover here today! Make sure you read up on it and check out the bottom of this post -- Lyla herself is furnishing some AWESOME prizes, including ARCs (physical and digital) of Not Quite Dead!

The eBook Settlements: What you need to know

I got my first eReader -- a very basic Nook Simple Touch -- back in December of 2011 as my birthday present and was instantly hooked on the potential for amazingness that was in my hands. Suddenly, all the books in the world were at my fingertips. I also realized instantly how dangerous this was. When my library was running low, I could simply touch a button and have it in my hands. I also have a Kindle Fire now that was handed down to me by my dad when he upgraded to a different tablet. But I use it mostly for receiving ARCs and rarely buy from Amazon. If I'm going to buy an eBook, it's almost always going to be from Barnes and Noble.

2014 Prequel & Sequel Challenge -- Sign-Up and Tracking Post

2014 YA Contemporary Challenge -- Sign-Up and List Tracking Post

Just before I went to BEA this summer and certainly while I was there, there was a buzz all throughout Javits about a newer genre lighting up the scene -- New Adult. Geared towards the set of young women in their twenties, in college or not, these types of books fall somewhere between YA contemporary and Fifty Shades of Gray. Here, the main characters, usually young men or women in their twenties, are seeking love (or love finds them), and the blinders that make YA books PG and PG-13 are taken off and sex isn't a thinly veiled reference or that something that almost happens, but doesn't. Yet it isn't quite as explicit or X-rated as the exploits of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey.

I hadn't had a lot of luck finding New Adult lit that suited me until I went to BEA. Most of it was either all about the sex and no plot, or way too fluffy and romantic for my taste with not enough realism or grit.

This all ended, though, when I finally met Trisha Leigh -- otherwise known as Lyla Payne -- who I'd been friends with on Twitter and Facebook for over six months but had yet to meet. And I already knew exactly how awesome she was because I'd LOVED her first YA series, The Last Year, which was the series that made me want to dive into the world of blogging. But the way I knew she would be a friend for life is when she pulled a copy of her second NA novel (By Referral Only, number two in the Whitman University series) out of her bag, already signed for me, and said "Here, I saved this for you!"

Real friends save each other books and enable their reading habits. (I hope someday that I'll be able to return the favor with a book that is at least half as good as anything she has written, because she is just such a damn good writer.)

The only problem was that I hadn't read the first book in her series, Broken at Love. But at only 99-cents, I had no problem downloading the USA Today Bestseller onto my Nook and devouring it whole.

Everything I've always loved about Trisha's writing in the YA genre was there, most specifically her ability to write from two (or more) characters' viewpoints and still manage to have each of them have a clear and distinct voice, her way of painting the pictures and describing a setting or word building, and developing relationships that are real, believable, and that make you root for the pairing. All of that was present with a more adult spin on it, but done with class and a great entertainment factor. I hadn't read or committed much to NA, but I knew once I'd read Broken at Love and then By Referral Only in less than 24 hours that these books were an example of New Adult Lit done right -- which is why the two of them are number #6 (Broken at Love) and #7 (By Referral Only) in my Top 13 of 2013.

Here are the details for each and the links to my review for both ...

AUTHOR: Lyla Payne -- Twitter | Website

PUBLISHED: Self-published March 12, 2013

GENRE: New Adult, Romance

PAGES: 338
SOURCE: Self-purchased

BUY IT: Barnes and Noble | Amazon

Find it on Goodreads

MY REVIEW of Broken at Love

*This book may not be suitable for audiences under 18.*

SUMMARY:

When a knee injury ends twenty-year-old Quinn Rowland’s pro tennis career, he’s not only dumped by his hot Russian girlfriend but ordered to attend college by his disinterested billionaire father. A rich kid who’s not used to being disappointed by life, Quinn and his sociopathic half-brother Sebastian create a frat house game intended to treat girls how they see them—as simple game pieces to be manipulated for their pleasure.

College sophomore Emilie Swanson knows Quinn’s reputation—after all, he did send one of her sorority sisters into therapy earlier in the semester—but the game and his charm bring them closer together and soon she starts to believe there’s more to Quinn than people think.

But what if the more is something darker than a game of toying with emotions and breaking hearts?

Quinn and Emilie might be falling for each other, but there are secrets he’s not ready to tell—and lifestyle changes he’s reluctant to make. She willingly stepped on the court, but if Emilie finds out she started out as nothing as a pawn in Quinn and Sebastian’s twisted game, she might never forgive him.

To his surprise, Quinn finds that he might finally care about someone more than he cares about himself…even if that means letting Emilie walk away for good.

AUTHOR: Lyla Payne -- Twitter | Website

PUBLISHED: Self-published May 23, 2013

GENRE: New Adult, Romance

PAGES: 290

SOURCE: ARC from author

BUY IT: Barnes and Noble | Amazon

Find it on Goodreads

MY REVIEW of By Referral Onl y

*This book may not be suitable for audiences under 18.*

SUMMARY:

After being unceremoniously dumped freshman year because of her family’s “new money” status, Ruby Cotton has taken care not to put her heart on the line. No matter how enticing Emilie and Quinn make it look, relationships are scary and hard—while a string of flings is easy and fun. That’s what Ruby wants. Easy and fun. The only problem is, when it comes to satisfaction in the sack, most of the boys at Whitman are nothing but pretty window dressing and false advertising.

Ruby takes it upon herself to make campus life more fulfilling, creating a referral database that allows female students to rate their sexual experiences, thereby informing girls of what they’re getting into before agreeing to a date.

When her acting partner, Liam Greene, finally shows some interest, Ruby figures she won’t need to utilize the helpful gossip. He’s handsome, fun, and most importantly, not a guy she’d ever fall for hard enough to let him break her heart.

Not only that, but dating Liam gives Ruby the perfect excuse to say no to Cole Stuart.

As a star swimmer and heir to honest-to-God Scottish royalty, Cole sits at the top of Whitman’s A-list—but he’s also the lowest rated referral on Ruby’s website. The ratings make rejecting his repeated requests for a date a no-brainer, but her real reason for avoiding Cole runs deeper than a string of unsatisfied exes.

He’s gorgeous, he oozes sweetness and charm, and the electricity between them could power half of Whitman, but Ruby knows it will only last until his family or friends convince him she’s not good enough.

Before she knows it she’s falling anyway, waiting for the other shoe to drop but clinging to a tentative hope that Cole might be as different as he seems. When the secret behind his low ratings comes to light, that hope is torn apart, and Ruby wonders if she was right to give him her heart…and whether she has the strength to let him keep it.